


Innercandesence

by Mitten (ScornfulSyntax)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Death, Character Study, Cloti - Freeform, Comedy, Complete, Easter Egg Hunt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Insults, Existential Horror, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Horror, Light Smut, Motion Sickness, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Slow Burn, Swore, Tags Sound More Serious Than The Story, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Timey-Wimey Lifestream BS, Updating Previous Chapters in a Time Story is So Meta, clerith (past), oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 53,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScornfulSyntax/pseuds/Mitten
Summary: COMPLETE!Sephiroth hunts through ages of lifestream memories seeking a path that will lead to the planet’s demise and his own oblivion. Aerith’s fading consciousness follows him through memory thread after memory thread, reliving her lifetimes and seeking a means to stop him.Gifted an alien memory from Jenova, Sephiroth is always ten steps ahead, until Red XIII’s grandfather gifts Aerith a strange materia.Scattered through time, in happy and sad threads of fate, two of Aerith’s dearest friends fall in love countless times in endless ways, reminding the last Ancient that there are happy endings out there that she must fight to protect.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Cid Highwind/Shera, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Comments: 147
Kudos: 45





	1. Preamble and Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Star Wars-esk opening crawl and a horrible ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write a cloti romance that had something to do with glowing bodily fluids. Then I decided I needed a writing challenge, so I made it from Aerith's POV, a complex time-based HORROR story, and decided it was nonlinear. Do you know how hard it is to write a nonlinear slow burn that still makes sense?
> 
> You should never post something without a beta reader.
> 
> FUN FACT: The last two sentences on my draft at all times are, "IN WALKED SEPHIROTH.  
> HE DEMANDED TO KNOW WHO LEFT THIS GLOWING SOCK UNDER CLOUD’S BED." All caps. Bold. I leave that there so there's always something happening next, and also to remind myself that however stuck I get, I can probably come up with something better. I realize that if I had just written a story based on this concept alone, it would probably be more popular. So, if this gets really boring, you can always append these two sentences anywhere in the story you like, and it was canon to the story at some point.

**Preamble**

This is a story of friends and companions, found family, who all loved each other very, very much. Their lives and stories relived countless times for our amusement, recorded in the threads of the lifestream—every time just slightly differently.

In the longest threads, Sephiroth is banished to the obscurity of Cloud’s memory; prisoner in these lifetimes to his last shared cells housed in the sole remaining host. The puppet’s severed strings now bind him. The planet saved, the companions live out happy and fulfilling lives. Cloud, Vincent, and those semi-immortal due to Shinra’s enhancements out-survive their companions and the eventual extinction of humanity.

But all memories return to the lifestream one day.

When Cloud perishes, Sephiroth’s consciousness in the lifestream is free to remember these tortured and fruitless failures. Driven to further depths of madness, he is bent on the only revenge left to him. To unremember countless futures already written, he must destroy the planet, the lifestream, end this cycle and all traces of himself and the essence of everyone else forever.

Sephiroth relentlessly hunts for new paths to live off of existing lifestream memories, seeking oblivion. Soon, his meddling rouses the fading but all-present consciousness of Aerith, and she follows memory path after memory path remembering—reliving—seeking a means to stop him.

The only apparent way to end Sephiroth is to end the cycle. The only way to end the cycle is the inevitable death of the planet, and destruction of the lifestream itself. Or can she find an alternative?

Gifted an alien memory from Jenova, Sephiroth is always ten steps ahead. Until one lifetime, Red’s grandfather gifts Aerith a strange materia.

  
  


**Prologue**

**_Time is fluid; and we, the living, fixed stones in its flow.  
— anonymous_ **

Invisible vaporous tendrils snaked around her slender wrists, whispering their presence against her skin. She could see the faint green sparks rising like lightning flies in the periphery of her vision.

…we will remember...after this memory fades...after this cycle is done...

Gunfire and the answering alien howls of the remnant echoed off the walls in the vast crystalline chamber beneath the Forgotten City. This time Cloud had overcome Sephiroth’s control and thrown himself in her place.

He was still conscious, but the sucking wound in his chest gurgled and sputtered threateningly. Gazing at her in shock, his life spilled like a fountain over the dimly lit dais, emitting its own faint glow as it shed to the still water below.

There was no harm to say the things she shouldn’t now, even as their companions exited battle and climbed the precarious stone steps. This memory had run its course. She would depart with him.

"I love you, you know. I have loved you more ways and times than you can imagine."

Fleeting confusion brightened his eyes, followed quickly by the defensive look he dawned in every instance when he couldn't garner a sufficiently cool response in a beat.

It changed nothing. She smiled sadly and brushed stray spikes of hair from his eyes. 

"Thank you. I’m sorry… and I'll love you as many more times as it takes."

Conflicted, he tried to say something, blood foaming delicately at the corners of his lips, the fading glow of his eyes perceptibly dimming, when a thread caught just so on her arm—

The small hairs of her nape rose and she smelled ozone. She was still with him on the dais, but she was also with Tifa four lifetimes adjacent, days in the past in Nibelheim under the stars, breeze blowing gently off the mountains and through their hair as their legs dangled from the water tower.

A humble row of Tudor style cottages lined the cobble street below, and she was turning to look at a window into a room that had been Tifa’s as a child. The double focus made her head hurt.

"A scientist from the mansion visited my papa in that house once. He said if you could build a spyglass that could look fast enough, you could see the past—"

She laughed politely, but her stomach rolled. She knew what came next.

"—And if it could look slow enough, you could see … paths.” Her beloved friend turned to regard her with uncertain amusement, “He said it kind of funny. Like a joke with no punchline."

"Mmmm. Shinra scientists for you."

Memory threads crossing. Such ill timing.

The sweet smell of standing water mingled with sharp copper and mako in her nose. Cloud's reply to her confession was lost beneath the clamor of Tifa tearing onto the dais and throwing herself bodily to the ground beside him, careless of his pooling blood soaking her stockings and boots. She flung herself across him hysterical, powerful hands pressing at his visible wound to stem the flow of blood and force cure after cure into his chest until her depleted mana ran dry.

Demure gentleness cast aside, Tifa wailed in desperation, "Don't just sit there! Aerith! Do something! Do anything!" Barret arrived at the top of the steps and took in the scene, shuffling helplessly.

  
  
  
  


...this isn't how we end...I promise...I promise...

"Tifa..." Cloud whispered reverently, and died.

...I promise...I pr...

  
  
  
  


Tifa made the sound. The one that haunted Aerith through all waking memories. The unforgettable wail of a soul tortured; the last of everything that mattered torn away.

As her anguished voice failed in another lifetime, Tifa tossed her hair and gazed up into the teeming ocean of stars above their heads, "I wish there were paths to different pasts."

Aerith hung her heads to hide her tears—

—and pulled back at the thread and remembered.

  


  



	2. Strange Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith gets a strange materia.

**Strange Memories**

**_Every future has a past, even those unwritten.  
— anonymous_ **

It was impossible to say how many memories ago it had been now, when Bugenhagen had gifted Aerith the strange materia. And most perplexingly, even the memory she credited as first felt like deja vu.

She had already been remembering longer than she could recall, nevertheless she listened as she always did, sitting in the cluttered observatory study perched at the highest point of the canyon ridge. Red’s grandfather went on at length about the Cetra, her extinct people, and the lifestream, the luminous collection of all the accumulated life experience and memories of everyone and everything that had ever lived… _ever_. Inside the planet swam a literal ocean of condensed lifestream in the form of mako—memories, chronicling lifetimes, consciousnesses, and timelines long past. Given geologic time frames, these memories could solidify to materia, enabling the wielder to “remember” the skills of those long extinct.

She knew every sentence and inflection of his speech by heart, but she tried to pay attention in case some detail changed.

He was expounding on the cycle now. It didn’t really work exactly as he described it, but she couldn’t very well tell him that. She could only gently mock the simplistic concepts in the privacy of her own thoughts.

_Yes, yes,_ she thought bitterly. _The constant cycle of reliving the same and slightly different lives seemingly over and over._ Watching all of the countless ways she and her friends met their ends, often in attempts to spare one another.

Sometimes the guilt got awfully heavy. Sometimes it felt difficult to remember what her objective was. Had she even truly found it yet? She had lived so many lifetimes now, she felt she’d nearly forgotten as much as she remembered.

Maybe she should just give up.

The wizened man’s cheerful countenance softened as he watched her. She seemed lost in her own thoughts, staring hard out the window at the ruddy dusk settling on the canyon.

“Sweet girl, you’re not even here are you?”

In many lifetimes, Aerith had arrived at these very moments—these very words—pensive at all the new information and simultaneously anxious to escape and find out what antics she was missing away from the party. She loved Tifa, but she was keenly aware that the dark-haired martial artist shared a mutual interest in the party’s swordsman. Over time, and many remembered eventualities, the nature of her own interest had shifted with her growing understanding of their delicate situation. Still she never got over the exhilaration and nostalgia of being reunited around the Candle—of enjoying the next few precious fleeting interactions before her time ended in so many paths.

But confronted with his question this time, she suddenly felt as if she might cry because the answer could carry so much more weight and meaning than it seemed. She waited a long moment for the choking tension in the back of her throat to recede before she settled for, “I don’t know,” which felt more kind and truthful than the “no” that typically concluded their chat.

Bugenhagen’s eyes sparkled behind his glasses. “Ho Ho Hoooo! We live so many times so many ways. Our energy and experiences as many lives reborn as those relived—but just slightly differently.”

This dialogue was new. She had said the same thing so many times, originally eager to get back to the Candle to await her friends… and Cloud. Later out of habit—out of knowledge—she had repeated her response, the rehearsed script of a movie watched countless times. Usually she followed the script, other times she said something wildly different just to see if she could push anything to change. Whatever she tried, the result had always been the same.

Only now, feeling raw and vulnerable after a long string of terrible memories, with this shockingly simple change, she found herself in new territory for the first time in a long while. And he seemed to know more about the true nature of the cycle than he had ever indicated before!

Then he took her hand, turned it palm up, and placed the strange materia in her care.

...Diverge...Memory of the False Hero...Gift of Calamity...Enables the wielder to see where memory threads can potentially diverge...The blessing of pestilence, madness, and chaos...May it fray all of knowable time...

The naturally occurring materia was smokey grey and weathered smooth like a beach stone—thin and glassy as a lens. It fit in her palm like a shallow bowl, the curve drawing her gaze to its center.

"Ah! Careful," the old man warned, placing a frail but quick palm down over the jewel, obscuring her view. "That which lies behind already exists, and its pull is sharp!"

Aerith stared at him perplexed as he laughed jovially and drew his hand away. "You could raise a golden chocobo in the time I’ve wasted staring into that thing! You must prepare before you remember."

Bugenhagen explained that the materia could reveal the wielder’s past in startling clarity, and what’s more, hint at unexplored paths off of one’s history that had already taken place. He theorized that a rare consciousness that could hold its form and not disperse in the lifestream might explore these possibilities in subsequent revivals, and maybe one of the countless possibilities was the key to renewing the cycle.

But wasn't that just what she sought to avoid? Wasn’t that what _he_ was seeking?

…it’s all stopped...I must find a way...something is wrong with mother...

She didn’t have long to mull her inner thoughts as he continued. Perhaps her heritage might grant her the rare ability to use the materia. It would be utterly useless in life. It could not foretell the future; only hint when one might have done something differently, and it was good for little but watching one’s current life memories in the mind’s eye as one would watch a television.

“Mind, young lady,” he warned her sharply, “a weak wielder may be drawn to stare into it endlessly reliving moments of glory and happiness or agonizing over missed opportunities, embarrassments, or the faces of lost loved ones. But if you resist its seductive pull; equip it out of sight and work hard to master it, you might carry its power on with you.”

He watched her tuck the materia away in a pocket, a wistful look tugging the deep smile lines etched in his face as it disappeared from his view for the last time. It occurred to her that he might be bidding the thing a fond goodbye. His eyes sparkled a little more than usual as he bustled her out the door to be on with her new mission.

Rushing to the Candle with new purpose, she bubbled with hope. It had been so long since she’d made any headway in what felt like an impossible task. She still had to find a needle in a haystack, but maybe now she might be able to spot the promising haystacks instead of wandering blindly. Her green eyes glittered with promise, and she could hardly contain her eagerness to get back onto the battlefield with her new treasure discretely equipped in an inner pocket of her jacket.

Typically somber at this point in their travels, she had even elicited the rare chuff of laughter from Cloud, who was amused at her sudden and enthusiastic bloodthirst. He made his way around their circle of companions, checking in with each in turn, eventually taking a seat at her side. Rather than dwelling on her fear of isolation as she did in most lifetimes, she relentlessly insisted he take her with him in battle from then on. He made no secret of being irritated with her badgering, and huffed grudgingly when he finally gave in and agreed, making it clear that it was only because he knew he’d never put her off of the idea.

But she could see the telltale glow in his eyes; the tell he could never conceal.

Let his delicate ego be stroked. It was harmless to let him believe it was because she wanted to be by his side. Mostly harmless.

With a little guilt, she caught an echoing glint across the firelight—red flames dancing in deeper red pools marred equally with anxiety and unvoiced heartache, quickly looking away. Tifa awkwardly rose to her feet, shoulders hung, devoid of her usual light footed grace. An unreadable look on her face, she dusted herself off and made her way toward the inn without drawing the attention of their other companions. It was easy with Barret emotionally regaling the team with stories of AVALANCHE’s founding in this very location.

...I'm sorry... I was always so weak...I'm so sorry...please come back...

Aerith committed a silent apology to her dearest friend, as she watched her make her way down the path and into the privacy afforded by the deepening shadows of the evening. She knew from countless memories that Tifa was plagued this night with worry for Cloud and his fragile identity; the only cure for her fears, keeping a watchful eye on him. Much harder to do if she were left sidelined in the reserve ranks in favor of Aerith. Aerith was also more keenly aware than Tifa herself, that Tifa was head-over-heels in love with Cloud Strife, no matter how hard she denied it.

Staring after where her friend had disappeared, Aerith reassured herself the benefit to Tifa would be worth the sacrifice of a few unhappy moments in a few lifelines in the long run. So much more lay ahead for her beloved friends beyond the events to come. Tifa couldn’t know it yet, but Aerith was solidly in her corner. Aerith loved Tifa and Cloud, and Tifa would always be in Cloud’s corner, even when Aerith couldn’t be there herself.

True to his word, when Bugenhagen asked Cloud to select someone to accompany him and Red to the cave of the Gi, Cloud had caught her eye and gestured with a curt nod.

When they returned, long after the rest of the party had retired for the night, she stole away to sit by the Candle and pulled the strange materia from her pocket, allowing her gaze to drift to its center.

She saw vividly her small hands coated in multicolored paints, scrubbing judiciously with the thin Shinra branded liquid hand soap at the sink in the room where she and her mother lived.

And then her mother called out her name in her beautiful voice, clear as a bell.

It felt sharper than any time she could remember experiencing it in all the streams of memory she’d ever traveled, and it hit her like she’d been physically struck.

...I'll fix this...I promise...I'll fix it all for you...

She jerked back and tore her eyes from the materia. She rarely remembered her early childhood, even following the billowing threads of the lifestream. It never changed, and it was too painful. Felt too… rigid somehow. But this. This had felt unlike any memory before it. More real than lucid dreams that sometimes felt more intensely detailed than reality itself.

She quickly tucked the materia away again and made her way, bewildered, to her bed in the inn.

In this first lifetime with what short time she had, she relished the excitement of working the mysterious gem to mastery. Sometimes, if the opportunity presented itself at an inn or camp, she might spend some time cautiously gazing deep into the center of the strange materia, letting it guide her mind in perfect meditative detail through the events of this lifetime’s past. It was easy to lose track of time, but for she who had already lived and relived so many times before, she supposed it was less novel than for the typical wielder. The real test would come after...

When at last the materia was certainly mastered, she puzzled over the fact that it never split. In the time remaining to her, she struggled with the strange excited apprehension that she felt occasionally when she found herself anticipating her departure back to the lifestream—leaving this memory-turned-newly-forged-lifetime. Was it wishing for death when she knew a memory was doomed? Was it morbid when death might mean the way to a happy future for everyone and everything she cared for?

Could it be called bravery when she faced it without fear because she knew intimately how it felt?

It was hard to square her feelings when they ran this course and lingered, so as she quietly picked her way through the gates of Gongaga in the dim hours of the morning destined for the Forgotten City, she comforted herself with an old tuneless rhyme her mother had amused her with when she was small.

“Hmm hmmm, go gently down the stream … merrily merrily… Life is but a dream.”


	3. Towering Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith gently nudges Tifa and Cloud creeps like a creeper stalker.

**Towering Promise**

**_Look forward, even if forward is back.  
— anonymous_ **

Tifa lowered her gaze and watched the way the mako lamps and fireplaces made the light dance in the jointed glass windows of the homes and businesses around the square below. At this distance and in the low light, it was almost easy to forget that none of it was real.

After a long silence, she glanced over her shoulder at Aerith’s back. Her head hung, eyes shielded from scrutiny by the ringlets that framed her face. “Aerith? You alright?”

“I’m fine. Just… thinking.”

Tifa thought she detected a small sniff, easily missed in the creaky drone of the water tower’s old fan, and wondered if something she had said had driven her friend’s memories somewhere dark. Aerith had a long history with Shinra and its scientists. If what little Tifa had seen in her brief visit was any indication, she shuddered to think what may have happened to Aerith and her mother in their long years of captivity.

Red and Cloud knew about it, too. Cloud was so single-mindedly aggressive with Elmyra. What had he seen? Had Shinra done unforgivable things...to Cloud?

Tifa suspected Aerith allowed or even encouraged Elmyra to cling to the Shinra party line that she was a well treated guest. She may have feared she would eventually be coerced back into their custody, and wished to spare her mother the anxiety on top of further loss.

Aerith was so sweet, selfless, and kind. Sometimes she reminded her of Jessie.

Not wanting to pry, and hoping to revive her friend’s cheer, she resolved to change the subject. She cautiously scooted closer, careful not to catch her skirt on the old rough hewn wood of the platform as she had done so many years ago in this same spot with another.

In her best conspiratorial voice she said, “You know, a long time ago this was the hot dating spot for the young people in the village. If everyone weren’t Shinra plants, we’d have to be careful not to let anyone see us up here or there’d be talk.”

Aerith’s shoulders shook gently with laughter, “Tifa Lockhart! Are you flirting with me? Taking me on a date to your childhood make out spot.”

Tifa waved her arms defensively, “Not at all! It’s just the best vantage point for the only real thing left in this town,” she gestured to the grand natural view before them, lit only by the moon and stars.

“Maybe we should make some noise so Cloud notices us.”

Tifa broke into a giggle, “He’d get really jealous. Me up here monopolizing your attention.”

Aerith snorted and Tifa could hear the impish grin reflected in her voice, “How are you so sure he wouldn’t be jealous of me, hmm?”

Tifa’s eyes widened in surprise at the implication, and she quickly ducked her head, “Ahh, he doesn’t think of me that way. Besides, you two have been practically connected at the hip these last few days.” She chuckled, and hoped it sounded less uncomfortable than she felt.

Aerith hummed thoughtfully, “You just can’t see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking.”

Tifa blushed and fidgeted with a loose splinter on the platform by her side. Aerith wasn’t the first to tease her along these lines, and she grasped for a way to explain, “Nah, we go back a long way, but it was never like that. Actually, he asked me up here once—”

Aerith squealed with scandalized delight, and turned to face her friend. Any hints of tears from before were gone in the shine of mischief dancing in her eyes at this spicy revelation, “He did not! What did you do? What did he say?”

Tifa laughed, though she could feel her blush deepen, “—well, that’s just it. I got dressed up and met him thinking—you know. But, when I got here, he had called me up here to tell me he was leaving town!”

Aerith smacked herself in the face with a palm, and they both broke down into a shared cascade of laughter. She could feel Aerith’s hand placed consolingly on her back, “Cloud Strife. Absolutely hopeless.”

Tifa wiped a stray tear of mirth from her eye and shook her head, “Yeah. He was always a little awkward.”

“Mmm… but you liked him, huh? I bet he was so cute.”

Tifa furrowed her brow in thought for a moment, “Well, we were really young and he kind of blew me off a lot when we were little, so I don’t know if I did at the time. But I think I did after that.” 

She took a long languid stretch and smiled at the memories, “He _was_ cute. He had eyes bluer than a kitten. Sort of always had the personality of a house cat, too, but he used to scrap like a junkyard dog. That night, the sky looked a lot like this, actually. It was about the same time of year. I can’t believe I made him pr—” She stopped and made a small dismissive sound, looking back to the stars, searching for guidance how to go on, “He probably didn’t have any idea what I thought it meant.”

Aerith leaned forward into the edge of her vision, shrewd eyes catching hers, “But…. What if he didn’t misunderstand at all? What if you did?” She folded her hands in her lap, swaying a little, “I mean, he’s not exactly great with words. I doubt he was then.” She looked away toward the east, “...I’d bet my lucky ribbon he knew.”

A long silence passed between them as Tifa considered this. The wind whispered quietly through the boughs of the evergreens in the hills surrounding the town.

“Maybe. Maybe, back then.” The smile left Tifa’s eyes as she became busily absorbed in star gazing again. “It’s... hard being childhood friends. Timing is everything, you know?” Her eyes followed the procession of constellations across the horizon, lost in memories of afternoons spent scanning newspapers, and chewing the ears off of strangers at the inn for word about a prickly blond SOLDIER, surname Strife.

Aerith bowed her head and nodded. “That’s true. Timing is everything.” Here Aerith paused for a long moment and seemed to consider her next words carefully. “Life is short, but it’s also really, really long, too. You never _really_ know what’s in store. Don’t lose sight of your dreams, okay?”

Tifa gave a small nod, but it was difficult to be enthusiastic. What if their dreams conflicted? What if it hurt their friendships? Besides dreams, whatever they might be, were for the living. Best put aside when the future wasn’t guaranteed. They were trying to stop Shinra and Sephiroth from destroying the planet. Life could only be long if they were successful.

But Aerith always spoke like she didn’t have a single doubt that the future would be bright. It was comforting sometimes, and confounding....and occasionally unsettling.

She kicked her legs and glanced to her right, catching the glow of sharp aquamarine eyes in a slender masculine silhouette staring intently up at her from the street near the shop down below. She quickly looked back up and pretended she hadn’t noticed, “Uh oh. We might be caught.”

Aerith giggled wickedly, and suddenly seized her hand. “Let’s make a show of it!”

Tifa laughed and protested, twisting and scrabbling trying to pull her captured hand back from the wily flower girl without upsetting their balance, “Aerith! Stop it! You’re gonna—”

“Everything alright up there?”  
  


Tifa froze and looked down to realize that Cloud had come to a stop on the street just below and between their positions, looking up at them with poorly veiled curiosity. She quickly snatched her hand from Aerith’s and crossed her hands in her lap, crossing her legs in the same motion. This was a compromising position to be caught in a skirt. “Cloud!”

Aerith showed no such concern, “We’re fine! How ya doin, Cloud? Was there anything good in the shop?”

He addressed Aerith, but his eyes lingered on Tifa, “Nothing great. Do you want a few extra hi-potions for the trip north?”

...beautiful...

“No, save your gil. I think we’ll be fine.”

He nodded, at last lowering his eyes and turning in the direction of the inn, but he seemed to think twice and paused, “Don’t stay out too late. We have an early start. And be careful climbing down in the dark. I’m not staying up to catch you if you fall.”

“Yes, dad.” Aerith teased, rolling her eyes. “Jeez, ya fall off one roof. I’ll be fine. In case you didn’t notice, I have Tifa with me.” Relaxing a bit, Tifa repressed a smile as he grunted, ruffled in consternation, and started toward the inn with a shake of his head. She uncrossed her legs and watched as he went, catching the brief flash of the corner of one of his eyes as he cast one last look back at them in the same spot he’d left her so long ago.

Aerith stretched and yawned. “Oh, I’m suddenly really sleepy. He’s exhausting sometimes. I think I’ll be going for the night, too.”

“Okay,” Tifa nodded, rubbing her arms to dispel some of the gooseflesh rising in answer to the deepening chill as night advanced on the mountain. “I’ll be right behind you. I just want to stay a bit longer.”

A sudden spike of anxiety gnawed at her stomach. Maybe she should go too. Maybe if she didn’t, Cloud would find more time to spend alone with Aerith. Maybe she should try to find him first and ask him to come up and look at the stars, just for bygones sake...

While she was busy second guessing herself, Aerith crept behind her on the platform. “Take all the time you like, and … thank you for showing me. You were right, the sky isn’t so bad here at night.” Aerith gave her one last warm squeeze on the shoulder before she made her way around to the ladder to climb back down to the ground.

She was left alone with her guilty thoughts. How could she even think about trying to sabotage the happiness of someone so lovely? Besides, Cloud would like who he’d like no matter how she might try to interfere.

After Aerith had departed and well after the door to the inn had shut behind her, Tifa climbed to her feet, and made her way to the shorter ladder that scaled the side of the water tank. Easing her way up and off of the last few rungs, she carefully cat-walked along the edge, and settled down at the highest point, taking in the old familiar view of the valley stretching far off into the distance to the sea. She wondered if this might be the last time she would sit here to see it.

Inclining her head she looked across the galaxy of stars. From here, high above the town, she thought sometimes she could perceive the curve of the planet, and the thin delicate band of blue that shielded it from the cold of space. In this spot, she sat at the helm of a great starship, sailing across the universe, with all of everyone and everything that mattered at her back.

Whatever came, she would fight for them. For Marlene and Barret, for her new companions, for the memory of her lost companions and family, for penance, for Aerith... but most of all for _him,_ wherever his heart drew him, however Shinra had changed him. Come what may, he was the last tangible tie to her past here. The only one who remembered the same place, and the only thing authentic in a synthetic corporate mockery of her home.

Down the street, she didn’t notice the faint glowing points of light that lit the corner pane of the window to their room at the inn. Didn’t feel it as they followed her, vigilant, until sometime later she made her way down the ladders to the cobblestone below, and back up the street to the shelter of the inn.

...I promise...

She didn’t know that gentle wistful eyes had watched her through windows for most of the years of her life in this town, and at least that too remained unchanged.


	4. Embracing Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zack is ultimate supportive sweetheart. Aerith narrows her focus.

**Embracing Dreams**

**_The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.  
— A. Einstein_ **

Mastering the materia had worked! Aerith wished she could tell Bugenhagen he was right.

In the depths of the strange materia she could see the memories of her current life channeled and when she might have chosen a different path. While adrift in the lifestream, she could sense which threads held unexplored branches. It was as though she could read the essence of the strands and see a certain texture to them that held promise. It was a strange sensation that felt a bit like trespassing, but it narrowed her focus somewhat.

In many subsequent strands of memory she followed, Bugenhagen showed but never gave her the strange materia. And in just as many he had given it enthusiastically only for the memory to ultimately dead-end, the first where she mastered it included. 

She still had no idea of her end goal. Unfortunately, Diverge, the name whispered to her thoughts when she equipped the materia, did not suggest an objective for any given memory, or how the events might be altered. It merely indicated where alternatives might lie.

Despite the great advantage it provided her over her previous aimless travels, she still wandered memories over and over, often failing to determine how to create change or sometimes finding deviations that were no better—or even worse—than the existing paths.

It was exhausting. As long as she had been at it, she’d grown no easier with the countless endings she’d witnessed, except perhaps her own.

But there was always one reprieve in the lifestream. She could sink into the comfort of a familiar allied consciousness. Although mostly incorporeal, she sensed him at her back, brilliantly bright and kind, wrapped around her, a faint impression of white feathers tickling the border of what she considered self.

“Zack.”

“Your energy feels almost as staticky as his. Try to relax a little.” His vague outline closed in on her, squeezing her edges until she was soft and mellow and smoothed to his liking. When his presence in the lifestream was strong, she relaxed in him like a shelter. He was playful and clever as in life, more interested in making her laugh than prying for the juicy details of the last memory relived. He seemed to intuitively avoid heavy topics and to take her words at face value.

“There’s so much, Zack. I can’t remember them all, and sometimes I don’t know when I’m living or dreaming anymore. He’s out there forging new fates. As fast as I can investigate one, the cycle continues, and he forges three more. It feels...hopeless.”

“So what if it is hopeless? Can’t give up.”

“I know you’re right, but...How is he even doing it?”

Zack was prone to fading in and out of true consciousness in the lifestream; but perhaps because of his SOLDIER modifications, he was generally more stable here than unaltered humans. He had been assisting her as best he could by oozing around the peripheries of Sephiroth’s consciousness and eavesdropping whenever he was near enough to access. “You know how he’s doing it. Without ethics, morals, or any compassion, and causing as much damage as he can. Being bad is easy. It’s doing things your way that takes time.”

He felt her energy deflate, could sense her reaching out in the tangles of branching thread streams, trying to take stock of the forest for all of its countless trees. “I just...I don’t even know what to do next sometimes. If you could see what I can see.”

He couldn't, but he wished he could to be more helpful. He retained vague nuances of the lives he'd lived but could only follow memory threads so far before he lost focus and faded. He had no way to ever touch Diverge. Sometimes, if he could reliably hold his form, to try to be of more use he searched the thickets of threads for the present thread—the planet’s memory created from the present at the surface. Aerith described it as a thread that constantly grew at the end, hissing and spitting green sparkles. Unfortunately, it had been long missing in the massive expanses of memory threads. Zack didn’t remember having ever seen it before, and Aerith had no time to seek it.

As far as she could perceive, countless threads held points that diverged. Even the vast condensed ocean held promise. And for all that already existed, there was more created every time she turned her focus away. There was an impossible amount of work to do.

She felt his presence warm, “You know, Angeal told me a lot of stuff about embracing your dreams and defending your honor. But one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a Turk. ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing crappy.’” His shape unmistakably waggled its eyebrows at her for emphasis.

“Zack Fair, what the hell.”

“No no, what it means is, sometimes you get so overwhelmed you don’t even know where to start. So it’s okay to just start somewhere. Even wherever you like! Do a shitty job for a while until you’ve got something because you can always improve it later. You’ll be further along than you were when you were frozen.”

“I guess. When you put it that way, it sounds sort of like starting a garden.”

He swelled with pride, “Or training to be a SOLDIER. It applies to anything really.”

“But, have you looked around here lately?”

“Well, yeah that’s a lot of green spaghetti. But, do you have a favorite?”

Aerith considered.

She loved the long threads. The ones Sephiroth hated most. The ones where Cloud learned to forgive himself, moved beyond his grief and guilt, and lived happily with their family. Although she couldn’t live in many of the long tails of these memories, they were her favorites to eavesdrop in and influence indirectly. He had a family with Tifa. She loved their children. She loved the man he grew into. She loved watching even as their loved ones aged, how he grieved gracefully, and carried all of their memories forward, stepping up when humanity needed him. He became a real hero.

And in the furthest threads, she sent the rain and blooms of flowers to remind him he was never completely alone.

...the end lies at the origin...

“You love him, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You and me both.”

She felt a little self conscious, but she knew that there were no secrets to be kept here.

“He reminded me of you a lot at the start. Back when I thought you’d moved on—”

“You reminded him of me! I still can’t believe you stole my “one date” line. But if you were going to use it on anyone, he was a good choice.”

They shared a laugh.

“But I did fall for him for a time—the real him. He wasn’t actually very good at being you.”

Zack flooded the hollows among the branches of the lifestream with boisterous laughter. “I know. I’ll pretend not to notice if you don’t notice the lines where I fell for someone else.”

“Deal.”

“But which of us did you prefer?” He invaded her space giving the impression of crossed arms and a roguish grin.

She would have blushed if she could, “That’s not a fair question.”

“Yes it is! I asked it.”

She rolled her eyes, “Everything you can imagine has happened. It’s all happening simultaneously right here. The more I understand it, the more I realize no love is like another. One doesn’t replace another, but...sometimes loving someone is about being there for them, and sometimes it’s about letting them go.”

In so many memories she had shared a whirlwind crush with Cloud in the midst of unthinkable circumstances. She knew he felt strongly for Tifa and for her, and it wasn’t surprising that he wavered back and forth in indecision. He was hardly more than a teenager in a man’s body. He had limited experience with pretty girls and had only really liked one in truth, struggling with his feelings of inadequacy and failure. Who could blame him for being blindsided by unexpected and conflicting feelings, or freezing up when a choice had to be made? Trauma, memory loss, and damaging experimentation aside, it was part of growing up.

...once a puppet, always a puppet...who pulls the strings?...

And she had grown, too. When she was a young soul—before she could remember, before she understood more keenly—she had used every advantage. Tifa’s reserve and shyness, Cloud’s desire to be a hero and a protector, and her own natural boldness.

There were threads where they chose one another, but most weren’t long or happy because of the circumstances that surrounded them. The more memories she traveled, the greater her conviction to ask him not to fall for her. But the heart wants what it wants. Everything had happened no matter how she might try to interfere.

“I think it’s fair to say that Cloud is a project I share with Tifa. And I’m pleased if she has him, and I have you.”

“You love her, too.”

She gave him an unsubtle once over, “Probably better than both of you.”

He tried to pretend to be wounded, but he knew her heart; and he shone brighter than a sun with satisfaction.

After a time he ventured, “Well, if you like those memories best, start there. If you have to fail over and over, at least let yourself enjoy it a bit.”

There was some wisdom to what he said. She didn’t follow these paths often. They were long and sweet, like enjoying a rich dessert. She reserved briefly revisiting them for when she needed a pick-me-up. And she felt guilt when she did because surely her time was better spent resolving and repairing dark and broken memories full of pain. Enjoying this felt...selfish...given what lay in some of the most warped and broken lines. Surely being a heroine meant throwing herself into the worst of it.

“Maybe. But maybe not.” Of course he could read her thoughts here. Heavy thoughts projected just as speaking. “I guess you have to do whatever you think is right, but...I don’t like it when you cry, and you’ve been doing it a lot lately.”

She felt the brush of his energy soothing along the borders of hers again. The shape of the memory of him, his hands gently resting on the small of her waist, his chin on her shoulder. She felt herself shiver as the outline of his lips gently traced the side of the suggestion of her throat.

Hatred roiled in response, distant and dark, tugging violently at the threads where they rested. He was always out there, as she was; but sometimes he focused his vitriol on her before he went about his continued mischief.

“What a giant asshole.” Zack lashed out at a nearby stream of threads with a sound thrash that would surely communicate through the spiderweb of lines that the disdain was mutual. “What’s the point of a promised land without a little pleasure in it?”

“Don’t antagonize him.”

“Why not? What’s he going to do? Come over here and kill us?”

They both laughed until in life they might have cried.

“Okay, no, but you know he’s _trying_ and he’ll take it out on others. You remember that time he got control of Destiny? Besides, I don’t feel like enduring one of his narcissistic suicidal soliloquies.”

“Don’t worry. If Captain T-pose turns up, I’ll make him regret it.”

Aerith tensed. They both knew there was little Zack could do defensively here, and almost no way for him to interfere when she immersed herself in streams of memory. She didn’t want Zack provoking unnecessary conflict, “Really? How exactly?”

“By quoting shitty poetry, of course! I’ll filibuster him with Loveless until he fucks off. It always worked for Genesis.”

Aerith strained to hold her laughter, not wanting to encourage him. “Filibuster. That’s a five gil word for you, Mr Fair. Where did you hear that one?”

Zack snorted, “Kunsel...Man, I miss him sometimes.”

They fell silent for a while. The tendrils of all memory swayed and pulsed, lulling them with the planet's unending cacophonous murmur.

“Hey, Aerith? I feel like I remember Cloud being here before. We were the same. Why isn't he here with us?"

The question bothered her. It felt like the answer should be obvious. Like a familiar word suddenly blanked mid-sentence. "Mmm...who can say?"

Before he faded and she went back to her work, they simply enjoyed existing together for a few stolen moments.


	5. Boundless and Terrifying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuffie is violently ill. Aerith and Tifa are pals. Cloud tries. The party encounters Sephiroth and Jenova.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unquestionably my favorite character to write is Jenova. She has a filthy mouth. Mind the tags.

**Boundless and Terrifying**

**_In the presence of a threat, time is perceived more slowly.  
— anonymous_ **

Even on a good day and with forest cover, Aerith withered at views of the clear sky; but the open ocean made her apparent phobia worse. She spent most of her time below decks, studiously mopping up after Yuffie like a nursemaid. She said it was for the sake of keeping the party split up, and someone had to make sure Yuffie’s illness—currently being noisily blasted all over a stack of artillery crates—didn’t draw any unwanted attention.

Tifa privately doubted the ship’s personnel were either unaware of Yuffie or remotely interested in interfering. No one in Shinra’s ranks was paid well enough to deal with that kind of mess. Instead, she suspected it was Aerith’s excuse to remain in the safety of the enclosed hull, which provided a metal ceiling to the world—a reasonable substitute for the Midgar plates as they passed the time at sea.

For his part as the de facto party leader, Cloud did a reasonably good job of checking in on everyone he could find, ensuring uniforms were equipped passably, and demonstrating appropriate military stances and poses critical to looking like personnel and not stowaways. But his attention to finer details, like bringing Aerith and Yuffie something to eat or drink when they refused to leave their shelter below decks, left something to be desired by Tifa’s standards. No one went hungry or thirsty on Tifa Lockhart’s watch. And Yuffie had to be on the verge of dehydration by now.

During the afternoon dining rush, she loaded her arms with bottled water, athletic drinks, Shinra branded hardtack, and some grab-and-go servings of the unidentifiable hot slops provided to feed the crew for the evening. Pushing her way out of the door with her back, she nearly tripped over Cloud, dropping a few of the more precariously balanced bottles. She started to sink to her knees to retrieve them, but he was quicker, kneeling to gather the items dropped at her feet. “Thirsty tonight?”

Tifa choked, “W...what?”

“What? Err, I mean—”

They simultaneously recognized the potential double meaning of his words, and quickly looked anywhere but at one another to hide their mutual embarrassment.

Tifa busily reshuffled the supplies still in her arms as he awkwardly stood, “It’s not for me. It’s for Aerith and Yuffie.”

Realization dawned on his face all at once, and he gave a quick nod. “I’ll go with you. Let me help.” Without further ceremony, he started to liberate her of her burden as she stood blushing slightly like a schoolgirl asked if she’d like her books carried for the first time. Once her arms were more or less empty, he turned on his heels and started for the port below decks, leaving her to quicken her pace nearly to a jog to keep up with his stride.

When they at last arrived where their companions were “hidden” in the cargo below, Aerith’s face lit up. “Cloud and Tifa to the rescue!”

Cloud seemed to stand a little straighter at the praise, even as Yuffie peeked her head around from behind the crate next to Aerith and scowled. Her face was nearly as green as her top. “Oh, Gods. You did not bring food down here.”

While Yuffie ducked back behind her privacy crate for another round of heaving, Tifa quickly dodged around Cloud and smiled sympathetically at Aerith, unloading a few essentials out of Cloud’s arms into her hands. “Sorry pickings are slim up there, but hopefully this will keep you going.”

“Nonsense, this is perfect. You’re a saint, Tifa, and I really like your pack chocobo," she said with a wink.

Cloud’s mouth flatted in an unamused line. Tifa giggled, crossing her arms behind her back and leaning in to stage whisper, “He was really eager to help me bring your dinner.”

Aerith smirked, “Is that how it was, Cloud?”

Cloud looked startled to be put on the spot about his motivations, starting to stammer, but Aerith let him off the hook. “Tifa, could I borrow him for a moment?”

Tifa gave a strangled laugh, and moved past Aerith to check on Yuffie, “You’ll have to take that up with him. I’m not that chocobo’s keeper.”

Cloud folded his arms and tapped an impatient foot—which looked a little ridiculous while he was still holding two loosely closed styrofoam containers slowly dripping grayish mush onto the floor. “Wha’d’ya need?”

“Ah, I was just wondering if you could go check on Barret. I may have imagined it, but I thought I heard a gunshot earlier.”

Cloud started to protest, “If that had happened, I would have heard—” but Aerith cut him off, “I’d just feel better if someone laid eyes on him. Last time I saw him he seemed a little on edge.”

Considering it, Cloud realized he hadn’t actually been able to find Barret since the party had split to change clothes and blend in, so he put down the rest of the meager dining options and headed back toward the upper decks to indulge his curiosity.

Aerith turned to find Tifa gently rubbing circles on Yuffie’s back, clearly no stranger to a little illness from tending and bouncing for her own bar. “... Just sip a little of the sports drink and nibble the crackers slowly. It’ll help settle your stomach, and it won’t be so bad coming back up again.” Yuffie nodded miserably, too unwell to formulate a salty reply.

Tifa turned to Aerith, “And how are you holding up?”

Aerith smiled weakly, “Better now, thanks to you. I know this wasn’t Cloud’s idea. He was down here twenty minutes ago on a mission to find you when you disappeared from the lookout.”

Tifa felt a little abashed at this information. When she wasn’t squatting or posing as Cloud had instructed her to do, she had spent her time in the crow’s nest eagerly scanning the waves for the dolphins that breached and frolicked in the ship’s wakes. More than one decidedly un-soldierly squeal of delight may have escaped her when she had thought herself unobserved. She’d had no idea Cloud was keeping such a close eye on their positions. “Oh, ha, well, of course,” she stammered. “It was really our pleasure. Is there anything else you need?”

Aerith thought for a moment and narrowed her eyes at her friend, “You don’t have a Midgar plate-pattern parasol, do you?”

“Fresh out, I’m afraid.”

“Mmm, didn’t figure,” She twisted open a bottle of water and took a long sip.

“Aerith, what is it about the sky that bothers you?”

Aerith looked off kilter as she thought, “Ah. Hard to explain. I’m not used to it. It makes me feel dizzy, and it reminds me of some unpleasant things...It’s just not for me.”

She seemed to think for a moment, looking up to the pipework that crisscrossed the ceiling while tapping her fingers on the side of the water bottle, “but you know, just once I’d like to ride on an airship someday. I think it would be okay because you’d be inside, and it might be a lot like being on a ship like this.”

Tifa nodded, “I wonder how you’d feel about the sky over Nibelheim. Most evenings are cloudy from the ocean winds condensing on the mountain, but when it’s clear it’s so full of stars. It kind of feels blanketed. I always found it comforting as a kid.”

“I guess I won’t know until I see it. I tell you what, if we make it there, I’ll try to be brave and have a look so long as you’ll hold my hand.”

Tifa laughed warmly, “It’s a date—”

_Emergency alert! Reports of a suspicious character found! Those not on detail, search the ship. Report when found!_

_I repeat. Suspicious character found on board! Those not on detail, search the ship. Report when found!_

“—Shit! Do you think they spotted one of the others?” Tifa instinctively flattened herself against the crates, and peeked around the corner to watch actual crew members flooding out of the doors nearby and up the stairs to the main deck.

“Maybe. We’re going to have to try to find out. Can you handle a trip on deck, Yuffie?”

“HURK. Anything to get away from the smell of that stew or whatever.”

When the cargo bay was clear of soldiers and sailors, the trio rushed to follow where Cloud had departed. But as they arrived on the deck above, they were surprised to discover it just as deserted—with the exception of one soldier, apparently heavily drunk, staggering in their direction.

“Hey, it’s me, Red.”

“Damn, could have fooled me with the tail,” Yuffie quipped between exaggerated retching.

Red brushed off the comment and continued, “Cloud came by a few minutes ago headed toward the bow.”

Aerith nodded, “Let’s wait here a moment. We should stay put until he finds us.” The party dispersed around the deck, trying to look very busy searching for intruders. It wasn’t long before Cloud came jogging back from the front of the ship, followed by a massive wall of a sailor nearly bursting out of his uniform that could only be Barret.

“Everyone here?” Cloud asked, quickly looking around to be sure the whole party was present.

Barret anxiously cast about the deck, “If we’all here, who the hell else is stowin' away? C...couldn’t be—” A tense silence gripped them as unspoken possibilities hung in the air.

“Let’s not panic yet. It could be nothing,” Tifa cautioned.

“Right, let’s go find out what’s going on,” Cloud led the way across the deserted deck to the portal leading down.

The cargo bay was still and silent, just as they’d left it, except for the rhythmic thump of the ship’s mako engine. But as they made their way down the steps, they could see the prone bodies of several of the ship’s personnel scattered on the floor. As Cloud and Barret checked for vital signs, Tifa tried to take a few deep breaths. Aerith, ever fearless, led her by the hand behind the crates where they had been hiding their armor and weapons. Equipping their gear and passing the rest out to the others, they watched Cloud shake his head, sling the buster sword over his back, and then make for the engine room.

...come closer...

Tifa couldn’t be certain why, but everything in her body screamed not to pass through that door. Her numb legs carried her over the threshold, mechanically following the rest of her companions. With a disorienting detachment, she noted more bodies littering the floor, blood dripping with a loud pat-pat from a service walk far over their heads, as they proceeded toward the engine controls on the far wall.

The control panel was manned by a lone soldier with his back to the party. As Cloud approached him and called out, he turned and slowly sank to the floor.

Cloud’s shoulders seemed to relax a little, “It’s alright. It’s not _him._ ”

Then something confusing happened. The air and warmth seemed to drain from the space; the sound of the engine muffled and slowed to a distant droning clang; and although the space quieted and the floor was still, Tifa’s heart rattled inside her chest as if a massive base were reverberating full blast in the room.

The soldier rose from the floor where he’d collapsed, but he wasn’t the same man— _he was all wrong._ “Sephiroth!” Cloud roared, drawing his sword in one swift motion.

But Sepiroth didn’t even glance at Cloud. He rose to his full towering height and looked right over Cloud’s shoulder directly at Aerith.

With dead eyes and a flat affect, he spoke just above a whisper, “Get out.”

...mother, look away...mother, look away...mother, look away...mother, look away...please, mother, look away, please, mother...stop...

_Wrong wrong wrong. The dialogue is wrong. He’s really here_ —

Several things happened at once. Cloud lunged like a feral hound; Barret raised his arm and opened fire, sparks ricocheting off of the metal walls around the controls and the engine itself; and Yuffie sprinted up the nearest wall, levering herself into a covered position out of sight somewhere on the service walk above. Tifa’s gloves rose automatically; but even as she prepared to rush in, Sephiroth launched impossibly toward the ceiling, dropping a strange squirming tentacle onto the bodies which lay between them and the door.

Aerith raised her staff and freed a brilliant light into the deep shadows obscuring the upper half of the room where Sephiroth had flown, but the illumination only revealed Yuffie crouching and staring down at the floor below in horror.

The incomprehensible thing was devouring the bodies and increasing in mass. As fast as it grew, new maws sprouted at its base, speeding its growth. Whip thin tentacles lashed out and wrapped around the pipes climbing the walls, blocking their access to the door and sealing them into the windowless room with the abomination. It screamed in a voice never meant to be heard through the atmosphere of this world; and Tifa nearly crumpled, clapping her hands over her ears.

When she could look up again, the fleshy hulk stood five times the height of an average man, pale translucent skin covering it’s naked form. It had no true arms, but amorphous shoulder protrusions gave an impression of a slender body crucified on meaty formless wings. Thin tentacles roiled and squirmed while thicker ones, looking nauseatingly like veins, twitched at its sides. A comically small head pitched forward over bizarre feminine breasts and hips. The only comparison Tifa could draw was that it looked like some of the things she had recoiled from in the tanks at Hojo’s lab.

A bright flash and another scream brought her back to the present. Thinking fast, Red had cast Fire on most of the remaining bodies at the creature’s base to stop its growth; and Barret was now lighting the the thing up with volley after volley of bullets which punched wetly through its delicate skin, forcing it to focus on healing rather than growing. A shadow passed over Tifa’s head, as Cloud leapt to the front of the party, and threw himself into cleaving the vein-like tentacles within his reach. It was all the motivation she needed, and she rushed in to back him up.

Tifa focused a barrage of blows into the monstrosity, dodging a strange tail-like protrusion—more like the foot of a mollusk—that had formed around its base to try to flick the melee combatants away. To her right she caught a flash of silver as Yuffie’s shuriken sliced clean through a pair of veins rising like tree trunks from the beast’s body, the rush of air audible as the weapon arced back to its wielder.

A sickening crunching of ripping bone and sinew distracted her. The beast had wrapped a tentacle around the neck of a corpse lodged beneath its bulk, and pulled the intact throat and mouth away from its body. A hollow pulsating tentacle attached itself to the dangling windpipe and seemed to grow up into what remained of its neck; playing it like an gruesome instrument, the mouth and jaws quivering and clenching even as most of it was gone above the nose.

Tifa would not look, but it addressed her anyway, “Such strength. You would make a pretty puppet—or perhaps a fetching dress. My little pets might thrill to dance at your command.”

It clacked its teeth at her in provocation, carelessly breaking a few molars loose from its plaything’s jaws. “Tifa. Tifa. Tifa,” the thing moaned in mock sensuality. “Yes, Mother _remembers._ ”

Tifa squeezed her eyes closed, willing herself not to hear as she plunged a drilling jab into its abdomen, knocking low belching moans from some of the orifices at her feet. They seemed to titter in pleasure as they recovered. 

Somewhere to her left she heard the harsh crack of a whip, and Cloud screamed in pain.

“I’ll bend your body to his whims. He’ll worship me in your form.”

Suddenly the corpse voice rose in a shrill howl as Aerith’s Ray of Judgement hit the bulk of the creature square between it’s breasts. “WHORE OF BABYLON. MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES. HALF-BREED WEAK WATERED-DOWN _GET_ OF SCION LAIN WITH BEAST.” The countless maws at its base hooted and droned in agreement. The ghastly puppet raised above the din of battle, screaming incomprehensible curses in tongues unheard on Gaia. It never paused for breath.

Tifa would not look, but as she prepared a flying kick to finish a round of penetrating strikes, she found her left foot anchored to the ground. A grip tightened at her ankle and nearly pulled her off her feet, dragging her out of striking range of the beast. Staggering, she looked down to see wormlike tentacles wound in the laces of her boot, creeping so softly up the thin fabric of her stocking like leeches, she hadn’t even noticed. A thin sob of shock and terror escaped her lips. She couldn’t let them touch her skin—didn’t want the probing pinching tips to kiss and adhere to her flesh.

As if in answer, red and orange sparks flashed in front of her as Cloud dashed past, dragging the buster sword across the floor to sever the root of the tentacles that bound her. The tendrils climbing her leg instantly curled and melted to slime. Cloud transitioned his momentum into a graceful spin and brought the massive blade down hard through the creature’s chest, spilling alien organs and structures out in a wet birth-like gush. Rage masked his face, as he dug deep and unleashed his limit break into the open wound.

...I promise...

The creature’s body was thrown back by the rising force of the sword brought up under and through its chin. Red, attached by teeth and claws to its largest shoulder protrusion, was tossed back with it as the monstrosity fell, melting in a wave of splattering translucent purple tinged slime that crashed and rebounded against the wall. The puppeted corpse head fell silent and dropped with a dull thud to the ground near Tifa’s feet.

Tifa would not look. Her hands were shaking as they lowered to her sides. Her wide eyes glazed staring where the thing had just stood, now melted and washing down the bilge drains lining the room with little fanfare. Red shook one paw at a time distastefully, like a cat who has stepped in water, as he made his way back toward the party. Tifa vaguely registered Barret muttering obscenities somewhere behind her as he adjusted the holdfasts on his gun arm. The mako engine thumped away jauntily as if nothing had happened.

A warm hand grasped Tifa upper arm, and intensely glowing blue-green eyes filled her vision, breaking her thousand-yard stare. “Are you okay?” She shook her head a little, blinked, and returned his gaze, noting how his pupils dilated when she finally registered recognition. “Tifa, did it touch you?”

“No, I’m okay. I’m okay. Thanks for...that assist.”

Cloud nodded, but his hand didn’t move, continuing to steady her. He looked up to where Yuffie was still trying to shake slime free from her shuriken, “Yuffie, where did he go?”

  
Illness forgotten with adrenaline and combat, Yuffie shook her head. “H...He flew right by me, and then he was just... _gone._ He was mumbling something about time.”


	6. On Our Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud gets pissed because Rude likes Tifa. Aerith reveals her first love, Zack. Tifa pretends not to know Zack. Cloud has jealousy and migraines.
> 
> Zack thinks it’s all hilarious.

**On Our Way**

**_Happiness isn’t the absence of problems.  
— anonymous_ **

Cloud scowled and trudged up the dusty path to the latest in a string of trashed reactor towns. Tifa and Aerith were mostly keeping pace, although Aerith stopped intermittently to marvel at the overgrown palms and vegetation that lined the road. She would point out one weed or another—they all looked the same to Cloud—and chatter excitedly about it to Tifa. Tifa looked politely interested, but gave little response. She hadn’t been herself for days. The same distant look in her eyes even as he’d masterfully arm wrestled an automaton, gotten the high score in G-Bike, and bred an unconscionable number of moogle babies in the Wonder Square at the Gold Saucer all in an attempt to make her smile. She had, but not for very long. And that was only one of Cloud’s many issues to solve. 

The day wasn’t going well. Someone in the party was most likely a spy. How else would the Turks show up in a place as remote and desolate as Gongaga at exactly the same time? How was he going to identify the culprit and ensure the party's safety? Would the others, waiting back at the buggy, be okay while they followed up on Dio’s lead? All of it ate at him. He felt responsible.

With a band of Turks present, an inevitable fight had broken out. Fighting seemed to be a forgone conclusion whenever Reno opened his mouth, but privately Cloud was more hung up on Rude’s comments. What the hell were they talking about? How could that bald suit in the shades possibly “like” Tifa? He had pushed the button dropping the plate on her home and community just a few short days ago. The more Cloud thought about it, the more furious he felt that Shinra’s miserable shills had gotten away mostly unscathed again. Some other emotion was twisting in his stomach as well; but he refused to place it, instead focusing his efforts on maintaining the stoic SOLDIER look on his face. If he could be nothing else in this moment, he would be strong.

They had examined the burnt-out shell of the old reactor, hiding in the scrap when Scarlet, Shinra’s token female director of weapons development, and her Turk escort had shown up to search the site. Scarlet had announced there wasn’t any worthwhile materia here, which was a curious conclusion given they had pocketed a new summon near the spot where she’d been standing. Now they were just cresting the hill to the town, pausing by a small but crowded burial site off the main road.

It looked like the reactor had just blown last week. Was that steam rising off the roofs, or was the town still actively smoldering?

The roads were more of a suggestion, old deeply rutted mud paths between cobbled brickstone huts that were capped with more patching than roofing tiles—hallmarks of Shinra’s “favor.” The party made their way around town asking after their quarry. As usual there was no sign of Sephiroth except for for a few telltale sightings.

At last they came to the final home in their tour of the poverty-stricken town, and Cloud knocked while Aerith toed at the precariously leaning remnants of a small fence by the entrance.

A kindly old couple answered the door, clearly excited. Gongaga was so remote that visitors were rare, so they were all quickly seen inside and made comfortable to enjoy some light refreshments.

The old gentleman didn’t mince words, “You have a certain look about your eyes, young man. You’re a SOLDIER, aren’t you?”

“I was.” Cloud corrected, ignoring the mild pain throbbing in his head.

“Maybe you can help us. Our son left some ten years ago saying he was going to join SOLDIER. We heard from him now and then for a time, but he hasn’t written or visited in years. Maybe you knew him? His name was Zack Fair.”

Tifa’s eyes went wide, Aerith looked away quickly, and Cloud doubled over in pain, clutching at his head with his fingers threaded through the spikes of his hair.

_Unbearable searing heat—standing on dusty cracked earth. Aerith in a wasteland on the edge of the ruins of a city unlike any he recognized, a mountain falling down in the near distance. Howling wind whipping a man in rags as deep crimson as blood—_

“Cloud?! Are you alright?” As his vision cleared, he could see Tifa leaning in toward him, a hand outstretched in concern. Aerith was still looking somewhere beyond the far wall, as if she could see through it.

“Steady there. Maybe you should have another cup of ice tea, son. The heat can sneak up on you here.” The old man gestured to his wife, who was already rushing to refresh Cloud’s glass.

Cloud purposefully lowered his hands from his head, and seemed to gather his wits, a collected and focused look reasserting itself over his features. “Sorry. Never heard of him.”

The couple looked a little disappointed. But then the old woman turned to Tifa, “What about you, miss? You seemed to recognize his name. He wrote to say he had a girlfriend a few years ago. That couldn’t have been you, could it?”

Tifa’s eyes darkened with something like fear, and she quickly stood from the table. “No. It wasn’t me. I—I’m sorry. Excuse me, I have to go...” She was out the door before either of her companions could stop her. Aerith quickly rose, excused herself as well, and rushed after Tifa.

Cloud was suddenly alone with the couple, and a glass of tea three-quarters full. The ice in his glass settled noisily.

“I’m sorry. I should go with them—” The man nodded in understanding, moving to help heft Cloud’s giant sword away from the wall with obvious difficulty.

“Listen, if it’s not too much to ask, will you keep an eye out for Zack? Black spiky hair, bright blue eyes, hardly any sense, but sweet as a puppy. If you see him, tell him to come home. We love him, and we’ll never stop looking for him.”

Cloud nodded solemnly, “I will.” He lifted the sword from the man’s hands one-handed and replaced it at his back, and quickly made his way out the door, followed by the well-wishes of the lost SOLDIER’s parents.

Cloud made his way along the road and spotted Aerith down a lane to his left, trying to conceal herself in the shelter between a hut, a giant stone, and some heavy brush cover. As he approached, she turned away and pretended to poke at some bushy moss with intense interest.

“You mind telling me what that was about?”

She didn’t turn to respond, “I was just taken by surprise is all. I didn’t know this is where he lived.”

“Huh?”

“Zack. Didn’t I tell you in the park? He was my first love. He was a SOLDIER first class, just like you.”

“He was the same guy?”

“Zack Fair. He stopped contacting me years ago. I thought he moved on, but if he’s not contacting his parents either _—_ I guess I’m a little worried.”

“If he’s a SOLDIER, he can take care of himself. Funny, firsts aren’t common. I’m surprised I never met him.”

At last she turned around to face him, looking at him with an inscrutable expression, “Funny, indeed. Anyway, sorry I ran. I didn’t want to tell them I haven’t heard from him either. I don’t like lying, and I’d prefer that they keep their hope.”

Cloud nodded, and then looked behind himself, “Did you see where Tifa went?”

“No. She was out of sight before I got out of the door. I could use more time to collect myself. Why don’t you go find her? I’ll meet you back at the cemetery.”

“Fine, but stay out of sight from the road. We don’t know if more Turks will turn up.”

Aerith nodded and dashed past him to head toward the town gate.

Cloud walked the dusty roads searching for any sign of their wayward teammate. Before long he spotted Tifa looking around the shabby garden near one of the largest homes in the town. Her arms were wrapped around her middle and her eyes burned with anxiety.

Cloud slowed and approached with care, "Tifa?"

"Hey, sorry..." She looked down with pained embarrassment.

"It's fine. You bailed out pretty quick back there. Did you know that Zack guy?"

"No! I don't have any idea who he is!" Her self-consciousness melted to fear, and her response was edged with something like desperation. She couldn't meet his gaze as she said it, and she tried to turn away again, but he caught her gently at the wrist.

"Your eyes tell a different story."

"I really don't know him!" She repeated looking down at where he held her like a trapped animal, willing to chew off her own limb to escape this line of questioning.

"If you say so." He let her go, but he couldn’t suppress the disbelief in his tone. Tifa was obviously hiding something and Aerith had mentioned that Zack was a popular ladies man. Was Zack among the extended fan following Tifa had amassed in the years they were separated? Had they been involved somehow, too? Feelings that Cloud didn't know what to do with tightened his chest for the second time in the day, and he kicked a desiccated dirt clod in frustration.

"Cloud? It's pretty hard to become a SOLDIER, isn't it?" Tifa ventured, holding one of her arms with the other across her front.

"Yeah. I'm surprised I didn't know the guy."

"What does it take?"

Cloud shrugged dismissively. "Strength, willpower, hard work, a little surgery and some mako exposure." Everyone knew this. Was she trying to suss out something about this other SOLDIER?

"What was the surgery like?"

Cloud nearly staggered at the ice pick pain behind his eyes.

_Aerith, a grave look in her eyes, "...folding, warping, repeating over and over..."_

He shook it off. "Just... some injections and some minor out-patient stuff. Implanting S cells to work with the mako or something? One or the other alone won't have the SOLDIER effect. It was nothing. Why?"

Tifa looked downcast, no less anxious than before. "Nevermind. I really respect what you achieved, Cloud. I just..."

Something in the depths of her carmine eyes drew him a few steps closer. For days she'd been out of sorts and Cloud was determined to put an end to it here and now. "Tifa, what is it? What's wrong?"

Tifa looked into his eyes, glowing now with a radiance comparable to nuclear fission. She hoped her own weren't watering.

"Sometimes...Shinra has done such horrible things...I'm afraid...What if they...What if you..." She started and stopped her sentences, trying to piece together what she wanted to say safely, but she just couldn't find the words. How could she tell him she was afraid of what Shinra had done to him? How could she begin to tell him what the beast in the ship had uttered—how it knew her name and its threats had terrified her to her core? How could she tell him she didn't trust some of her own memories, but she was gravely afraid for his? Aerith would just come right out and say it, but what if...

What little she managed to stammer was enough.

His arms were suddenly around her, holding her close but so much more gently than he had in the last garden where they had stood together. Pure instinct guided her arms hesitantly up his to wrap around his neck—fitting them together—resting her head against his chest. He was unnaturally warm like a furnace, a little sticky in the subtropical heat of Gongaga, but so deeply comforting. A strong heart beat out an even pace beneath her ear. He smelled faintly of spice, leather, and woodsmoke, laced with the tang of battered metal and something uniquely _him._ He held her like a delicate nectarfly, minding the strength in his powerful arms as best he knew how with what limited experience he had. She felt safe.

"You don't have to be afraid.” He rumbled, one hand gently stroking down her hair. “I already told you, I made a promise. I mean to keep it."

“Cloud, that thing on the ship—”

“—Was just an illusion created by Sephiroth. Nothing more.” So _that_ was what had been haunting her. He mentally kicked himself for not realizing it sooner.

Tifa squeezed her eyes closed, turning her face into his sweater to catch the tears that trickled down her cheeks. Maybe what he said was true. Maybe she could excuse herself to simply worry about their discordant memories and his persistent flash migraines.

“Deep breaths, Tifa. It wasn’t real.” His hand was rubbing gentle circles in her back now. He felt her nod into his collar and draw a few deep steadying breaths. Slowly she drew back. Her eyes were a little red around the lids, but at last she broke into a real smile. One he was helpless but to return, the corners of his mouth curving up just slightly.

...I promise...

He cocked his head and slowly released his embrace as her arms slid back down his chest to her sides. “Better?”

Quickly smoothing her hair and brushing her eyes to hide any remaining tears, she gave a reassuring nod. "Yeah. A lot better. Thanks for caring, Cloud."

“C’mon. Aerith is waiting for us. We need to regroup with the others.”

She gave another nod and fell in beside him, a look of renewed fire in her eyes.

As they approached the town gate together, they could see Aerith stooping among some graves with her head bowed and her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were closed, and, although in the depth of prayer, she seemed to be holding in laughter.

Somewhere in another phase of existence, Zack Fair was laughing, too. To think that Cloud Strife was jealous of him—and actually believed anyone could turn Tifa Lockhart’s head away from where it had always been firmly pointed. Idiot.


	7. Stars Above Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have you tried turning the rocket off and back on again? Lots of tea screaming. Cid makes rude presumptions. Vincent would kill for a shower. Aerith is suspicious.

**Stars Above Us**

**_We are dead stars looking back up at the sky.  
— M. Thaller_ **

“GODS FUCKING DAMNIT!” rang out into the crisp afternoon air, upsetting a flock of roosting pigeons from the rocket scaffolding and the roofs of the houses nearby.

The old man Cloud was speaking to outside of the shop paused for a moment in observing the Shinra No. 26, nodded sagely, and said without a bit of irony, “That’ll be the Captain. Things must be going well today!”

Tifa tried to keep the skeptical look off her face as she glanced around at her companions. Everyone else wore their discomfort openly with the exceptions of Aerith and Vincent—the latter because he was almost never present, keeping his distance from the party, and the former because she almost never looked surprised or unsettled by anything.

Cloud made their excuses and the group moved on with the vague goal of finding lodging for the night before they continued their investigation. As they were inspecting a promising looking building on the east side of the town’s main road, Cloud suddenly craned his neck and looked over his shoulder toward a home at the base of the rocket. He took off without so much as a glance back and hopped a small fence, disappearing from view behind the house.

“Where the hell he goin now?!” demanded Barret.

Tifa shrugged and started after Cloud, guiding the rest of the party in the direction their leader had disappeared.

Following the scent of refined machine oil and mako fuel, the team found Cloud staring in wonder at a small seaplane parked inside the tidy white fence that surrounded the house.

“This is pretty cool.” he said in a rare show of open admiration.

Aerith’s eyes twinkled, “It has a Shinra logo on it. Let’s steal it, Cloud.”

As Cloud broke into an approving grin and made to do just that, a bespectacled woman in a lab coat stepped out the back door of the house. “Um… Hello? Can I help you?”

“No. We’re just looking at it.” Cloud lied through his teeth.

The woman adjusted her glasses and peered more closely at Cloud. “You’re a SOLDIER, right? Is your party here on behalf of Shinra? The Captain is expecting you at the rocket.”

“I’m—We’re not.” The party exchanged concerned glances at the revelation that Shinra was expected to arrive at any time.

“Mm, that’s unfortunate. Well, in either case, you’ll need to ask the Captain if you want to use the Tiny Bronco. I’m Shera. You can tell him I sent you, Mr. Cloud.” The woman smiled mousily over her frames as she stepped back inside the house and pulled the door shut behind her.

Cloud awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, “Alright. To the rocket, I guess.”

A short jog and a precarious climb later, a portion of the party found themselves just inside the entrance to the town’s most prominent feature. A sandy blonde man somewhere in his thirties was doubled over ranting and raging about a “memory leak,” anger-typing on a console near what Tifa guessed was the cockpit of the massive rocket.

...The aircraft engine vibrated behind her back, making the sweat trickle down her neck and into her shirt. She was trapped against the machine as the Captain leaned his body against her, his rough hand, stained with oil, pushing her thigh up until he had her ankle on his shoulder. Her skirt and lab coat, sticky with sweat and grease from the Captain’s manhandling, were hiked far up over her waist, leaving her exposed to the hangar behind him. “Take those stupid things off,” he growled, tearing open the first two buttons of her coat with his free hand to reveal her modest bust. She awkwardly pulled the elastic band that held her hair in a tight bun, and it broke allowing a cascade of carelessly tossed hair to fall over her delicate shoulders. The Captain gave her a forceful shove with his hips, and her glasses fell to the hangar floor with a clatter. She looked down in flushed embarrassment. “Please, Captain, someone will see.” He nosed against the side of her neck, scraping the delicate skin with the stubble of his unshaven face. “Lucky them,” he rumbled, taking in her long, luscious hair and beautiful hazel eyes before he captured her lips in an indelicate kiss. She gasped as his hand slid up along the side of her hip, and collided with the side of the aircraft behind her, holding his weight as he sunk into her...

“Are you the Captain?” Cloud queried at the man’s quivering back.

“Cid’s my name, but everyone calls me the Captain.”—more violently percussive typing could be heard—“FUCKING reboot of the whole system will take more than twenty-four goddamn hours, FUCK.”

“What is a memory leak?” Red asked sensibly.

Cid finally turned to regard his guests, and looked like the cigarette in his mouth might fall from his lips, “How the fuck did you get that dog up here?” 

Red looked offended and Cloud started to reply, but Cid was already looking him up and down, seemingly trying to discern how much a farm-yokel-turned-meathead could be expected to understand of computer science.

“Nevermind, kid. A memory leak is what happens when a computer manages memory like SHIT and can’t access or reallocate a bunch of used memory, causing it to eat up all its memory-on-demand and slow ALL-THE-FUCK down and freeze because it can’t DO SHIT FOR SHIT. Everything grinds to a halt. And that’s what this heap of scrap is doing right now!” Cid kicked the console to add emphasis to his highly technical explanation. “Fucking Shinra software.”

...it's all stopped...it's all stopped...there is no present...we're all dead...

The rocket groaned, settling more in its lean. Everyone present blinked uncomfortably.

“Can we borrow the Tiny Bronco?” asked Cloud, unphased. Tifa turned to look at him in horror.

“Sure, kid. Just leave the sword, the talking dog, and the pretty one,” he gestured with a jerk of his head toward Tifa, much to Yuffie’s offence, “and we’ll call it an even trade.”

Cid abruptly rounded on Cloud in the small space, causing the ex-SOLDIER to reach for the hilt of his sword automatically in self defense. “What the FUCK?! Are you out of your mako-swilling mind?! The Bronco’s my most prized possession! You think I’ll just hand her over to some asshole that wanders in here—?! Oh, hey, you’re a SOLDIER. You here with Shinra?”

Cloud’s hand dropped away from the sword hilt, “Nah. We’re with AVALANCHE. Trying to work out intercontinental transportation...and somewhere to stay for the night. Shera sent us.”

“Psh...Well, why didn’t ya say so? I can put you up. And give me a few days and a few thousand gil and maybe I’ll give you a ride, but I have a prior engagement with Shinra.”

The party shuffled and shifted uncomfortably. No one wanted to volunteer that they would rather be out of town before Shinra arrived.

Cloud decided to appeal to the man’s obvious interests, “What can you tell us about this rocket?”

“Shit, anything. It’s my whole life. You know before Shinra was an electric company, they were a weapons manufacturer. They developed ol’ 26 here during the war with Wutai, meaning to use her to deliver weapons payloads like the world has never seen. I was the best pilot in their fleet—No, the world! It was my dream to go to space, but shit went sideways on launch day thanks to Shera.” He mumbled some unrepeatable comments that Cloud pretended not to hear. “That’s when everything went to shit. They boarded up the space program. Called it out of scope, in favor of focusing on the Midgar project. ‘Cuz mako should be profitable, and space ain’t worth it.’ My dream was just a fucking footnote to their bottom line. My last hope is to talk to president Rufus.”

“Is Rufus coming...here?”

“Yeah! Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. About damn time the old man kicked the bucket. The space program needs a new president with dreams and vision!”

Cid rounded back to the console and proceeded with more furious typing, “I gotta stay here and kick this off. You met Shera? House with the Bronco? Go back and tell her I sent you.”

“Ah—but, we—”

“I’ll be there shortly. Beat it, you’re distracting me.”

...”Lick my sweaty tar-stained goggles, and ask me to forgive you again,” he ordered through clenched teeth. She groaned into the lapel of his jacket, but he only huffed a careless laugh. “You love it.”...

Cid left no room for argument and wouldn’t pay them any further attention, so the party made their way back to the rest of their companions, regrouped, and headed back to the house where they’d met Shera. This time they were polite enough to knock on the front door.

Shera answered and welcomed them inside, as if this wasn’t an unexpected turn of events, “Mr. Cloud? Did the Captain say anything about loaning you the Tiny Bronco?”

“Nope.” Cloud egregiously lied to prevent any more drama.

Shera looked unconvinced. She knew the Captain well, and he was a man with many things to say about almost any topic—especially his beloved aircraft.

Suddenly Cid burst in through the front door, “SHERA. ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?!”

Shera blinked behind her spectacles owlishly. “We got guests! Get some fucking TEA! GODS ON A FUCKING MOTORCYCLE!!”

“Right...right. I—I’m sorry. Please, everyone make yourselves comfortable.”

Cloud folded his arms in disapproval and scowled, “Uhh...don’t let us trouble you.”

“SHUT UP! Sit the fuck down in those goddamn chairs and drink your goddamn TEA!”

Cloud, mightily chastened, sat straight down into the nearest chair with a wide-eyed look Tifa hadn’t seen since they were children and Ms. Strife had caught him raiding the hayberry patch intended for her tarts.

Cid rampaged into the kitchen, “Arggggggh! DAMN, I’m pissed!” He appeared to engage a pink tea cozy and a box of crumpets in combat, just short of drawing weapons. Apparently he lost. “Fucking FUCK, SHERA! Take care of this. I’ll be out back tunin’ up the Tiny Bronco! Make sure they all drink their TEA!”

Cid dropped everything he’d been struggling with and strode out of the room as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Aerith snorted, “What a charmer.”

Cait Sith rushed to the kitchen to see to the tea cozy and upset crumpets. The little cat handily assisted Shera arranging the spread, clearly something of a tea enthusiast although he wouldn’t partake.

Cloud stood again and turned toward Shera, unsure how to help. “Sorry. This is our fault.”

Shera waved a dismissive hand from where she was bent over a charming platter of tea cookies and scones. “No no, he’s always like this. You’re fine.”

Barret raised an eyebrow, “He  _ always _ like this? That’s pretty bad. You ain’t gotta take that kinda disrespect.”

“I know it’s difficult to tell if you’ve just met him, but—none of it is really about me. I was at fault for the failure of the launch. There was a faulty O2 tank I could have repaired sooner, if I’d only realized. He had no choice but to abort the only launch attempt to save my life. But it was Shinra that decided to scrap the whole space program after that, and he can’t scream at Shinra for cancelling his life’s work—he’s dependent on them. That’s why I don’t mind if he blusters.”

The party looked thoughtful while the tea platter was arranged on the coffee table, and cups were passed around. Cait Sith insisted that Shera have a seat while he made the rounds to pour for each party member in turn.

The back door to the house banged in its frame, and Cid stormed back in.

“SHERA! You still haven’t served them TEA!”

“Sorry, Captain. Right away, Captain!” She rushed to unhand the hot teapot from the little cat.

Cid plopped down into one of the chairs swinging a foot up onto the coffee table and lighting a cigarette. He unabashedly glared at Cloud. “Siddown, kid, or ain’t my hospitality good enough for you?!” Cid rested his chin on a fist and groaned, “Shinra’s delayed in the pass from Nibelheim. Ain’t gonna be here until tomorrow afternoon. Looks like we’ll need to put you all up.”

Cloud sat down awkwardly in his abandoned seat, a tiny periwinkle tea cup clutched in both his gloved hands.

“How many did you say you had in your group?” Cid looked around the room performing a quick headcount. “Five and two pets?”

Red and Cait Sith looked aghast.

“Eight.” Cloud corrected. Cid looked at Cloud like he was an idiot before the young man went on, “We’ve got one more, but he keeps to himself. Dunno where he is right now.”

“Fine. Alright, well, we’ve got futons to put up five here. We’ll have tea and then you two,” he gestured carelessly at Cloud and Tifa, “can head over to the inn. I’ll call ahead and reserve you a couple rooms.”

Tifa and Cloud nodded in agreement, relieved for the moment that no one was screaming or hurling obscenities. Cloud supposed they could regroup early enough in the morning to figure out what to do about Shinra’s impending arrival.

They passed a reasonably pleasant tea together, discussing the finer points of chocobo racing, optimal materia slotting, and the more delicate topic of Red and Cait Sith’s statuses as full members of the party. In the course of conversation, they came to discover that Cid, beyond being a pilot of all things that fly, was also an accomplished dragoon. At one point, he excitedly dashed out of the room to retrieve one of his favorite javelins so that he and Aerith could compare polearms.

When dining was finished, Cid ordered Shera to start moving the furniture and setting up the futons as he hustled Cloud and Tifa out the door. He pointed vaguely down the street. “Two doors down on your left. Don’t be late for breakfast. Tea is on at 8 AM sharp!” With that Cid slammed the door shut behind them.

Cloud and Tifa looked at each other, shrugged, and headed toward the inn, taking in the lovely starry evening as they made their way toward the town entrance. The sky here looked much like it did in Nibelheim.

When they stepped inside, the clerk at the counter immediately welcomed them, “Ah! You must be the party of two staying for the night? The Captain called ahead.” The clerk went about the check in process without soliciting any more input from them. They shifted awkwardly, looking around at the spacious entrance and the hotel bar off to their right.

“By the way,” the clerk spoke up while shuffling through a small box of secured keys, “Your other party member already checked in. A Mr. Valentine? Or rather, we asked to check him in. He was looming in the bar smelling like death, frightening the regulars.”

Cloud grunted, a nonanswer that sounded neither shocked or apologetic. Tifa looked like she might wither and die where she stood.

The clerk smiled pleasantly, “Well, all is sorted! Here’s your key.”

Cloud looked at the single key slid toward him on the counter top, “Uhh...we’re supposed to have two rooms.”

“You do have, sir. Mr. Valentine is in room one. You have the key to room two. There are only two rooms in the inn.” The clerk smiled and motioned them toward the stairs and the bar with an air of finality.

Tifa took Cloud by the arm and pulled him toward the bar, “This  _ day. _ I need a drink.” Cloud nodded, allowing himself to be led. He was pretty sure he needed one too.

“We really need to stop letting everybody we encounter join our party.” Tifa muttered under her breath, “...childish thief, animatronic cat...a literal monster… what next?”

Tifa took a seat at one of the tables furthest from where the tender was working and put her face in her hands, leaning on the table with her elbows. Cloud picked up a bottle of middle range scotch and a couple of glasses at the bar and came to join her. He wasn’t about to start this conversation until they were at least two shots in. Tifa clearly agreed, destroying her first shot, and immediately grabbing the bottle to pour her second.

“Okay,” she gasped, plunking her glass down on the table and licking her lips to clear them of the smoky golden spirit. “What’er we gonna do here?”

Cloud stared at her lips, “Uhh—”

“You could go see if Vincent will let you into his room—”

“Yeah, of course—”

“—But he’s new. We barely know him, we found him in a coffin in a dungeon, he hardly wants anything to do with us, and you’ve seen what he does on the battlefield.”

Cloud nodded, eyes wide as Tifa poured him another shot.

Tifa went on, “I don’t think I feel comfortable sending you to sleep in there with him.”

Cloud assumed a serious business-like look as he poured her next shot in return, “I’d be fine. But I don’t know if I feel comfortable leaving you to sleep alone while he’s in the building. He used to be a Turk. Says he doesn’t have any love for Shinra, but...”

Tifa nodded solemnly, “Then it’s settled. We’re doing this. No one has to know.” Cloud nodded slowly, not entirely certain what he was agreeing to. They’d slept in plenty of rooms together but always with many other people present. This was a very different situation.

Tifa quickly stood and started for the entrance of the bar, moving as if she were afraid her nerve might give out at any moment. Cloud made to follow her, but she abruptly pointed back at the bottle on the table, “Bring that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, creeping past the door to room one with care. As soon as Cloud had unlocked room two, Tifa rushed inside and immediately shut herself into the bathroom. Cloud closed the door, locked it, and walked to the small two-person dining table to deposit the remains of the bottle of scotch. He was relieved to note that the room was furnished with three beds. Crisis averted.

It quickly became clear that Tifa wouldn’t be out anytime soon, as he heard the sounds of the shower starting. He leaned the buster sword against the wall beside the bed furthest from the door, dropped his pauldron, bracers, gloves, and harness to the floor beside it, turned out the lights, and made himself comfortable to rest facing the wall.

Sometime later the shower stopped. He could sense the light through the lids of his eyes as the door to the bathroom opened. For a moment, everything was quiet. The light flicked off, and the next thing he knew he felt the bed dip where a small weight had pressed into it behind his legs.

“Cloud?”

“Hmm?” For a moment the only light in the room was the dim glow from his eyes.

“This bed is furthest from the door and closest to the window. It’s the safest. Can we...Can I? Uh...For safety.”

“Oh, yeah.” He curled his legs into his chest so that she could crawl to the side of the bed furthest from the door, which, to his amazement, she did. “For safety, of course.” He repeated.

As he stretched his legs back out and rearranged himself between her and any danger the door might pose, she settled into the blankets. "Good night, Cloud."

Feeling a little bit bold from the scotch, he gently lay one arm across her over the blankets, just to reassure himself she was secure. "Good night, Tifa."

...I'll love you forever...when I lose you...beyond...after the last of humanity...beyond that...I'll fade with you...I'll love you until I can't...

And for safety sake, he remained awake until he was certain she was comfortably sleeping before he allowed himself to do the same at her back.

***

In room one, Vincent immersed himself in a hot bath after a cleansing shower, sighing in long repressed satisfaction. His garments hung off of every free hook and bar available, all meticulously scrubbed clean. Tomorrow perhaps he would feel less self-conscious in close quarters with his new companions, and could begin to acquaint himself properly with the party of complete strangers whose likenesses had haunted his nightmares well before they were born. There was certainly much ground to cover.

...Lucrecia...

***

Aerith had stolen out the door after Cid and the rest of the party retired. She perched on one of the rocket’s launch platforms, gazing into the strange materia. Some things had been bothering for a few memories now, and she thought she was beginning to identify some emerging trends. She made a mental note to investigate the next time the opportunity presented itself.


	8. Memories Below

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith finds something strange in the mako. Jenova is an asshole.

**Memories Below**

**_To an old memory like mine, the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep.  
— G. Eliot_ **

Aerith hovered in the lifestream listening to the murmur of the planet. Distant wails—the planet’s pain or Jenova’s rage—and the ominous echoing crack of old settling and shifting stone underpinned the peaceful din.

Lovingly she stroked the threads that snaked and swelled around her, wishing to telegraph kindness and good will. There was no way to properly soothe a system as vast and complex as the planet—one couldn’t even speak to it without the right unmasterable materia—but all things which could live and suffer deserved compassion.

Aerith had noticed some interesting patterns as she traveled recent memories, and curiosity was eating at her; distracting her as she tried to mind her focus and act convincingly when she delved into the memory threads. She found herself puzzling as she prepared to raise Zack’s faded consciousness to keep her company.

Sephiroth rarely confronted her directly anymore unless provoked, although they were locked in opposition. He spent almost all of his time and effort seeking some triumphant oblivion. She figured that by sheer luck he hadn’t found such a fate yet, making time and her effort of the essence. Most of her encounters with him were nothing but memories, but the more she worked in the long lines of threads, the more he seemed to actively try to drive her away—usually by making things really unpleasant for her friends.

She also noticed that the more she revisited and they encountered one another in the long threads, the more the long threads multiplied in number. Where the endings were happy, or at least bitter sweet, the more the merrier she thought. Sephiroth clearly thought otherwise.

She knew he hated these memories for their infuriating and maddening outcomes for him. They were the whole catalyst for his decision to end everything, but what did it matter if she visited them? The only thing she could guess was that he blamed her for their mysterious multiplication. She couldn’t know if the same growth occurred with shorter or middling range threads. If it had, she’d never noticed, but then they were much more abundant and far less distinct to begin with. The one thing she could say with certainty was that the overall mass of all of the lifestream seemed to grow everytime she looked away.

Another strange pattern was emerging when she used the Diverge materia. Her youth was always so heavy and sharp to remember. No other memories she reviewed made her head swim as her deep past did. Why would revisiting her childhood be so uncomfortable? The tragedies of her past, painful as they were, were facts she accepted. Why did confronting them in the materia’s guided memory feel like the physical pain of being winded or the lingering sinus pain after a blow to the nose?

She carefully focused and suddenly Zack was crashing into her, engulfing her like a wave. He held her in the borders of his embrace, “Welcome back!”

“Did you miss me?” She asked, although in truth she never really left this place.

“You know I always do, even when it’s been no time at all.”

She only smiled in response. “Hmmm so, I want your thoughts on some things.” She started to relate some of the strange patterns she had noticed.

“Boy oh boy, this is all new and interesting,” he hummed, his energy mimed thumbing his chin in thought.

“Do you think any of it might be useful?”

“I think anything Seph or his mommy doesn’t like is probably a good thing.”

“Yeah. I just wish I had some idea what to do with any of it—What any of it meant.”

“You said your childhood feels painful to look at with that materia. Have you looked at it from here?”

“Not in a really long time.

“Why not?”

“It always feels inflexible and kind of—I don’t know how to explain it. It never changes, so it feels like a waste of time to visit.” She struggled for words to explain. “And then when I try to look at it in the materia it hurts. The mental texture is… bad.”

Zack nodded slowly, considering all that she had said. “It’s funny. I don’t remember you saying anything like that about it to me before. Maybe we should check it out while you’re here.”

“I don’t know, Zack.”

“Come on! I can give you a hand. Maybe you don’t even have to remember it. Let’s just have a look at it with your fancy materia sight! It’ll be a fun family outing.” He grasped onto her and spun her around, the space he occupied glittering with excitement.

“You just want an excuse to go to the “beach”—AH!—Oh, alright—Zack! Let me go!" She was trying not to laugh again. He always did this to her. There was no beach in this place, but there was a line between the lifestream and the mako, and for whatever reason, he loved it.

"We’ll just have a quick look for the sake of being thorough.”

Aerith twisted in the direction that she considered “beneath” her, although there was no true orientation to this place. It was the direction toward the vast green mako ocean. The roots of almost all lifestream memory threads started or ended in the mako, and all memories condensed into it given time. The lifestream churned and drifted above the denser mako like living streamers, sinking into and rising out of its waves intermittently. It gave Aerith an impression of massive kelp forests drifting in ocean currents over the shifting sands of the sea floor.

It occurred to her that the lines of her true childhood were now long submerged in the mako, making them less accessible to view here. She had traveled much of this nebulous space in the past. Had she once submerged herself in the mako ocean to explore? She must have, but now she couldn’t remember it; nor could she remember why she and Sephiroth, and the blight of Jenova—which consisted of all of her reunited remnant that still infected the lifestream—all more or less occupied locations in the lifestream and not deeper in the system.

Zack looked out over the sea of mako as if pretending to try to spot her buoying childhood somewhere on the surface. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere…” She could swear he was sticking his tongue out at her.

She shook her head at him, and looked far off into the distance where the ocean curved—it was a great sphere in truth. Somewhere on the far side of it, Sephiroth dwelt in the muddy tentacles of Jenova’s corrupted influence, the lines so long that even at great distance, he could still somehow identify and access the same ones as her when he felt like meddling.

Well, no use procrastinating any longer. She hovered close to the ocean—forgot she didn’t really have arms, and tried to push up her sleeves—and gently grasped one of the lines of memory that disappeared beneath its translucent emerald surface. This memory she had recently visited, and should go all the way back if they followed it. She started to pull. “Come down here and give me a hand!”

Zack took up a position behind her, and unhelpfully reached for the line with his arms wrapped around her middle, pulling from just behind where she worked. She coughed and snorted to cover her amusement, and let the suggestion of her arms rest on his. He was happy to do the work in this position anyway.

The line was of middling length, but all were long relatively speaking. It took some time to make headway extracting the thing, but eventually all progress stopped, with Zack yanking at the unbreakable thread like a fisherman hopelessly trying to snap a fiber line barehanded. “I can’t pull it any further. I don’t know what it could be hung up on.” Zack looked at where the line disappeared beneath the waves baffled.

Aerith stared at the spot too. In all of her long experience here she couldn’t remember encountering something like this. Threads of memory might cross from time to time, or branch and gather if they were quite similar, but they never snarled or tied themselves in knots. She was certain there was a lot she had forgotten, but this seemed fundamental somehow… “Can you stay here and hold onto it? Keep it pulled taut. I’m going to go in and investigate.”

“You sure you don’t want me to go?” Zack offered chivalrously.

“No, it’s best if I do. Wait here.”

He nodded in agreement, “Don’t be gone too long, though. If you don’t show back up soon, I’m coming for you.”

She gave him a flirty wink, as much to ease her own nerves about this as his, took hold of the line and dove beneath the surface.

The pressure was immediate, pressing in on her oppressively like deep water, although there was no need to breathe. The sound here was also much louder. As soon as she was immersed, the cocoghany was greater than anything in the lifestream. So many thoughts and sounds and disjointed fragments of sensory memory. She would have winced and scrunched her shoulders in life, but she pressed on following the thread, focusing on a motion that would have been very much hand over hand.

It felt like time slowed the deeper she pressed, her efforts seeming to numb—clumsy and fumbling as one feels in a dream trying to perform some fine motor function. The pressure increased as well, and gradually she became aware that the further she went, the density of similar lines around her seemed to compress in on her as well; her vision crowded with green light and waving thread as fine as mermaid’s hair. Soon she couldn’t see before her anymore.

At last she hit something hard and solid, and the line seemed to disappear into it. She felt about and realized that many—in fact all—of the lines around her terminated into the thing as well. Strange. It couldn’t be a stone or some other planetary debris. The ocean ejected all foreign matter with time, including materia. Anchoring herself to it, she focused her energy and spread the space around her to create a gap.

And looked in astonishment at a thick length of green cord. Thicker than any memory strand, but clearly the same composition. It was perhaps the diameter her finger would be in life.  
  


She mused to herself, “Is this some kind of materia growth?” She examined the threads that disappeared into it. It didn’t make any sense. It seemed like every thread in all the area around her disappeared into this single cord without exception.

She was struck with an inspiration; she tried to remember the very end of the cord as she would a thread, focusing where it split and frayed into all the lines surrounding her.

_She’s in her garden at Elmyra’s house, digging lily bulbs on her knees in the late fall to spread on the overlook near the waterfall. She’s fifteen years old, and the year is 0000. She doesn’t know Zack Fair yet, but the lilys whisper that soon she will taste first love._

Aerith pulled back from the memory before she could go too far. This cord was a memory thread like none she had ever encountered! Then she noticed something else about it. Nowhere on the length of the cord that she could perceive in her gap was there a single node of divergence. The memory in the cord could not split!

She grasped onto the cord and followed it out of her small sheltering gap and back into the pressure and chaotic noise of the ocean. It pressed on and on and on; well beyond when her own life began. Nowhere could it diverge, and as best she could tell, every thread of her childhood was housed in this one single cord. She saw no others in any of the lines that surrounded her.

The further she followed the cord, the darker the crowding ocean made her vision, until she started to hear some different noise in the chaotic din—things that made her energy thrill with caution. She felt like something was looking at her from the depths, and she could not look back. Dimly she thought she saw something beckon through the haze, but that couldn’t be. One couldn’t really _see_ here.

She felt her borders quiver with some deep pulsing vibration exacerbated by the claustrophobia. She thought she felt something like a reed brush her leg, but she had no legs and the ocean had no reeds.

“ _Come closer,_ ” said something so close. “ _Come closer..._ ”

Creeping dread and revulsion washed over her. “I can’t die here. I am already dead. I can’t die here. There is no death,” she whispered to herself in reassurance.

“ _...dies irae, dies illa—solvet saeculum in favilla—sortes qui facit..._ ” Something grazing—encircling—her ankle, but she had no ankles.

  
**_"... reunion ..." _ ** whispered the cord in the language of flowers—the voice of the planet.

...the first yellow blooms in the wastes...

She felt the mako near her shudder and churn—and then buffet her as if something large were propelling itself away. _"...chattel... soil maiden..."_

Feeling disoriented and hoping this was all just a result of being far too deep in the mako, she decided to give up and head back to the surface—hauling herself up much more quickly than she had descended.

When she emerged, she found Zack “sitting” cross legged on the waves, pretending to floss what would have been perfect teeth in life with the memory strand he had been holding for her. “Hey! You were down there a while. Any idea what the hang up is?”

“Not a clue what it _is_ , but I did find it.” She explained the nature of her strange discovery as best she could.

“Did you find the other end?”

“I...couldn’t. I think...” She trailed off not wanting to give voice to her suspicion, but he pressed her, raising his brows in the exaggerated way a being of energy must to be expressive, “I think the influence of Jenova may be spreading into the mako. I think I ran into...something. That cord could be something Sephiroth has done.”

She looked down as the implications started to sink in. Her childhood _was_ unchangeable. There never had been nor ever would be any bright future where her mother survived. And although the cord wasn’t painful to remember, it was difficult —and possibly unsafe—to access and visiting with Diverge was very painful. It felt like...loss. Her own faulty memory would have to do going forward.

More frightening was the prospect that Sephiroth had the power to do this somehow. If he did, she must figure out how as her first priority. With the power to solidify unchangeable periods of memory, he could hem them into an inevitable end instead of roaming through time seeking a chance destruction.

Zack nodded, “Not good. Not good at all, but don’t fret. We’re already working to solve it, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, feeling entirely inadequate for all of the tasks laid before her.

  
“Cheer up! You never know… This might be the start of the end of our quest!” And with a flourish, he picked her up again and danced her in wide swinging circles through the waves until she gave in, and her laughter echoed above the planet’s mournful cries. “ _ **... the source...the boy...reunion...follow the yellow flowers...**_“

...where a hero began his journey...


	9. Fair-weather SOLDIER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardened SOLDIER is sus. I met his mom. She's sweetheart AF.

**Fair-weather SOLDIER**

**_Snow is beautiful, but if you hold it close it melts.  
— anonymous_ **

The little town of Icicle glittered in the fading sunset, windows glowing as the evening fires and oil lamps were lit to ward off the nightly deep freeze. Snow-crowned lodges, sided with heavily faded lumber, towered over slushy streets where children played in the last of the day’s light. Stands of evergreens fenced in the village, providing shelter from the worst of the biting northern winds.

Tifa sat at the table and chairs next to the window in the party’s room for the night looking over the scenery. It had been a long time since she’d seen snow blanket everything in sight this way. It had done it yearly in the mountains at Nibelheim, but she’d lived in Midgar for so many years she’d nearly forgotten how it looked.

Most of the party was passing their time in the bar two floors below, huddled around the massive furnace with icy northern ales and stories to pass the time. A few had broken off to retreat to the lodge’s adjoining sauna house, which pulled double duty as a storage shed for the massive cache of dried wood required to weather the long winters.

She’d thought about relaxing in the sauna but found herself instead in the empty room with a cold untouched dinner of stewed jumping-rabbit and iceroot before her, trying to deal with her heavy thoughts alone.

Tifa had a gut feeling that something was coming. A big reckoning. She couldn’t say what it was, but she could feel it in her bones. Whatever train they were on was off the tracks and careening toward some unforeseeable but frightening fate. She’d cried so many times in the last few weeks, mourned so much loss, and faced so much fear day to day—she was starting to wonder if things could ever be normal again after all of this. Life felt like it moved from one massive world-ending tragedy to the next, careless of the damage left in its wake. All she could do was get up every day, put her gloves up, and keep fighting wherever their journey took them next, promising herself that what they were doing would make a difference—would make things right.

Tifa let herself mourn, but her worries, as always, lingered on her childhood friend. If he’d been quiet before, his silence was now deafening in the days since the events beneath the Forgotten City of the Ancients. If he’d been stoic, he might now be called unreadable. It was as if Cloud had said and felt so much on the dais, holding Aerith’s lifeless body, that he now carried a heavy debt of words and feelings.

Tifa noticed that sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, his hands shook, balling and unballing in fists reflexively, as if he might hold himself together by sheer force of will. He seemed closer to breaking than Tifa had ever seen him before. Her anxiety whispered that Cloud was at his limit, pushed there by whatever she had tried to protect him from when she didn't question his memories—whatever was possessing him to act against his own interests. One more serious emotional blow, and he was primed to shatter.

Tifa knew he blamed himself for what had happened to Aerith, even though he wouldn’t say it. He’d faulted and doubted himself since he’d given the black materia to Sephiroth, forcing them to push north to try to recover it before it could be used—since he’d lost control and tried to attack Aerith at the Temple of the Ancients and again below the Forgotten City. If Tifa hadn’t stepped in to fight him off and shout him down when she had...

The outcome hardly seemed to matter. Although it had been Sephiroth who plunged from the ceiling wielding the Masamune and a strange golden materia, Cloud laid the blame squarely at his own feet.

She wasn’t sure where Cloud was right now—he’d taken off some hours ago, confiding to her that he wanted to investigate something alone. At least she was certain he wasn’t down in the bar getting hammered. 

She’d dropped in a short time ago to order her dinner and a carafe of hot cocoa to keep her company. The cocoa was served in an insulated pitcher that the bar staff guaranteed would keep it hot well into the next morning. It had peaked her interest because they said it could do the same for cold beverages like beer and cider too. She’d instantly considered purchasing these pitchers for her own business—until she remembered in the same breath that Seventh Heaven was buried and gone. The cocoa sat untouched along with her dinner on the table before her now waiting to be of use.

As the evening advanced, the stars pricked the clear winter sky outside the window. The children disappeared from the streets, and the shadows grew to fill in the space where the light held out the longest. Tifa watched as the condensation on the window panes froze in beautiful crystalline patterns as the temperature dropped outside.

As she studied the natural lace of the frost, she spotted a faint light reflected off the snow in the road moving toward the inn. Even in the advancing darkness, and with his gaze downcast toward his feet, Tifa could tell it was Cloud; his eyes blazing with some unspoken emotion. He soon disappeared from her view through the front doors of the inn. Self consciously she realized she’d risen to her feet to watch him. She collapsed back down in the chair, wondering what on Gaia she could do.

Tifa had dreaded the closeness developing between Cloud and Aerith, unable to name the emotion she felt out of shame. But now the alternative—mourning Aerith and watching Cloud mourn Aerith—was infinitely worse than any heartbreak she might have had to face for the sake of their happiness. She ached for Aerith to be here; she would know what to say and do to cheer and comfort everyone. Tifa realized all at once, much to her own surprise, she loved Cloud and Aerith dearly. She never would have wished for this. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes. She had promised she wouldn’t cry anymore. Aerith wouldn’t want her to.

The door to the room opened quietly and Cloud stole inside, appearing not to immediately notice her as he turned to lean his sword against the far wall. His eyes seemed to pulse with illumination, the light catching just so, and Tifa realized they were misty around the edges with faintly glowing unfallen tears like hers. She felt like she wasn’t meant to see this and quickly turned to study her dinner, blinking her own tears away.

“Thought you’d be with the others...”

Careful not to look at him, she pushed bits of stew around her plate. “Cloud, welcome back. Did you find anything?”

He didn’t respond immediately, although she could hear him shifting, the gentle clink of his harness; one of his bracers brushing his pauldron. “Yeah. I guess—this was Aerith’s hometown.”

“Really? She never said so to me...” Tifa cautiously turned to look at him over her shoulder, relieved to find he had somehow managed to hide the evidence of his tears, although his eyes still shone like haunted spotlights in the dimly lit room.

...ghosts in the blood...ghosts in the eyes...

“Found an old lab earlier. Went poking around and found some videos. She and her mom were kidnapped from here shortly after she was born. Dunno if she even knew.”

“How awful...”

“That son of a bitch Hojo.” The leather of his gloves protested as he clenched his fists. “Next time I see him...”

Tifa nodded. She didn’t want to ask Cloud for the details, but she realized after all she’d seen, at least where Hojo or Sephiroth were concerned, the next time Cloud raised the buster sword for an execution blow, she wouldn’t stay his hand. She dropped her fork and stared at the table, folding her hands in her lap, wondering what had become of her. Perhaps she was a monster created by Shinra, too.

The second chair at the table scraped along the floor as it was pulled out beside her, and Cloud took a seat, his arm gently brushing hers. His skin was so cold she nearly jumped, and she could feel the tension in his muscles, telegraphed in a light shiver that he was doing his best to hide. “What’s in the pitcher?”

“Cloud! You’re freezing!” Without a thought she turned and tried to rub the warmth back into his arms.

He grunted dismissively, but she wouldn’t endure any of his protesting or posturing. She was reasonably certain he’d neglected himself to near hypothermia. “Take your gloves and shoes off.” She was instantly up and hauling a spare blanket out of one of the linen trunks on the far wall, as he sluggishly moved to comply. She settled it over his shoulders, much to his obvious discomfort—at least until she sat back down in her chair and took his hands to look for evidence of frostbite. Fortunately his fingers and toes looked fine. He was just chilled. She reached across the table for a paper cup, and poured him a generous portion of hot cocoa. As the barman had promised, it was still piping hot, near to boiling. “Nothing too hard tonight. Just some cocoa. It’ll warm your hands.”

He looked a little disappointed to trade her hands for the warm cup, but he accepted it and stared into it thoughtfully for a time.

...not worth all this...

“Tifa...I’ve been thinking.” He said at length, and then was quiet as he seemed to consider what he wanted to say. “I failed Aerith. I was supposed to be her bodyguard. What if I...”

She couldn’t see him now, with the blanket tented high on his shoulders, but she could see the intensity of the shine off his eyes reflected in the surface of the cocoa as he leaned over, his forearms on his knees and his head hung. “Cloud, it wasn’t all y—”

“What if I fail to keep my promise to you?”

She was silent for a long moment before some courage possessed her, granted by the foreboding hanging over her and the memory of Aerith’s enviable boldness. She pulled the blanket away from his shoulder closest to her, wrapped it around herself and leaned against him, carefully placing an arm over his back comfortingly. “You can’t.”

Flustered, he started, “Huh?”

“No matter what happens, you can’t. I asked you to come save me just once. You’ve done it over and over. You’re holding yourself to a debt you’ve overpaid so many times. I can’t figure out why you won’t let it go.”

“You wanted a hero. I’m just a f—”

“You  _ are _ a hero. You’re  _ my _ hero.”

He seemed startled by her words. Slowly he sat back up straight, placed the untouched cup of cocoa on the table, and before she knew what was going on, he’d snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her into his lap under the blanket. Tifa gasped in surprise as she found herself in a crushing embrace, just shy of too tight to breathe comfortably. He shook silently, his face buried against her shoulder.

…please forgive me…I'm not...I'm not.........When you find me...please stay...

Unable to tell if he was quaking from cold or stress or tears, Tifa carefully wove her arms around him, less hesitantly this time, and gently stroked his hair as her mother had done for her when she was small—unable to convey in words the unconditional love and comfort of family she wished she could provide him. They shared so much history; so much loss; so much grave responsibility. Her heart broke for him.

For as prickly as he looked, she found his hair was soft as chocobo down. She carefully combed her fingers through it, gently scratching his scalp, marveling at how it seemed to naturally prefer to return to its original arrangement.

Gradually he stopped shaking, and at length heaved a sigh she couldn’t interpret. His high natural body temperature reasserted itself, stoking a building inferno under the blanket. Still they didn’t let go of one another. Not for a long time—until he stated in a plaintive voice, “I hear footsteps on the stairs.”

Tifa realized belatedly that she’d turned her face to nuzzle into his hair at some point, and that this had become something more of a cuddle than a comfort session. He relaxed his grip on her, and she sat back blushing, slightly embarrassed—but not too embarrassed to smooth the spikes back from his face with care. His eyes were a little puffy, but unreadable. She couldn’t tell if it was due to the cold or the emotions still unspoken blazing at her in his arresting gaze. She carefully stood and reseated herself next to him.

“You should try the chocolate,” she offered softly, “It’s good for anxiety.” He was opening his mouth to protest, as the door banged open. Yuffie and Cid marched into the room, howling with laughter, both dressed in little more than a loose assortment of sauna towels and underthings.

“Yeah!” Yuffie was cackling, “The old ladies in the Wutaian coastal towns were really superstitious about it. They could see it across the ocean on the horizon. They called it—” here Yuffie said a phrase in Wutaiese that Tifa didn’t recognize. Cloud huffed and shot his cocoa like whiskey.

“SHINRA’S COCK!” Cid nearly lost his towel weeping with laughter.

Yuffie, seemingly as incapable of reading social cues as Cid, spotted Cloud and pounced on him, clinging around his neck and shrieking, “CLOUDY! Are you cold? Why would a big strong SOLDIER choose a blankey over the sauna with us?!” She planted a kiss right on top of the blanket, which Cloud promptly erupted out of like a raging volcano, flailing and shoving to get the teenage ninja away from him.

Yuffie gave a dismissive shrug, dropping some of her modesty towels, to Cloud’s abject disgust.

Tifa quickly busied herself pouring her own cup of cocoa, and went back to looking out the window as more of the party filed in expressing their collective horror and disapproval at Yuffie and Cid, and claiming sleeping spaces for the evening.

Cloud cast the accursed ‘blankey’ away on one of the beds, left his drained cocoa cup on the table, and took up a spot against the far wall near the door and his sword.

Cait Sith powered down in an out of the way corner, some distance from the rest of the party. Red hopped up to sleep at the end of the bed Barret had claimed. Cid sprawled shamelessly, taking up an entire bed for himself. Vincent elected to sleep on the floor against the wall, much like Cloud, but strategically placed beneath a window.

Tifa, of course, had to share a bed with Yuffie, who was barred from entering the bed until she put on significantly more clothing. As the teenager grumbled and pulled on her shorts, Tifa wrapped herself snugly in the blanket Cloud had discarded. She'd claimed it only for extra protection, certainly not because it was warm and smelled like him.


	10. Finite Endings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nother day, nother Masamune piercing.

**Finite Endings**

**_You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.  
— P. McCartney_ **

_ Aerith’s hair whipped about her shoulders, barren wastes as far as the horizon beyond her back. “I’m so, so sorry,” tears were welling in her curiously dull eyes, ”but there’s more I have to ask you to endure...” _

...this way...

Cloud flew up into a sitting position in the bed in the strange shell home of some massive extinct sea creature. The party lay sleeping around the curving space. Before anyone could wake and register what he was doing, Cloud was on his feet, his sword slung onto his back, walking toward the door. Tifa stirred in a bed nearby next to Yuffie. “Cloud? What’s wrong?”

“They’re here. Somewhere nearby—Aerith and Sephiroth. I don’t know how I know, but we have to move now.”

Tifa nodded, sliding out of bed and strapping on her gloves, as various members of the party either stirred, prepared, or protested the wakeup call in the middle of the night. Soon they were making their way west on the strange bone-white natural roads of the City of the Ancients, following Cloud as he fearlessly blazed the dark trail ahead.

...this way...

They moved toward the spiny shell at the center of the converging petrified forest in the city center, which they had explored the day before. The small moonlit moat was still and calm as it had been on their last visit, but Cloud picked up his pace as soon as they neared it. “This way I think.”

“This place was a dead end yesterday, Spiky. Dunno how it gonna be any different after midnight,” grumbled Barret, but Cloud charged into the entrance of the building heedless.

...come closer...

As the party followed Cloud into the spiraling shell building, they were surprised to see that the strange projection of a fish, which had previously occupied the center of the main room, had been replaced with water, impossibly shaped like steps that led down below the floor.

Tifa gasped and reflexively reached to catch Cloud as he placed his weight onto the top step, but, remarkably, it was solid. He wasted no time charging down the staircase out of sight. With more care and nerves, Tifa tested the first step, and found that she too could place her weight on it without any give. In fact, it seemed more like some kind of carved flawless crystal instead of fluid. She proceeded down the steps, and the rest of the party followed trailing behind.

The crystal staircase curved elegantly down into the grounds of what seemed to be a water temple far below. The waters of the placid lake outside surrounded the bases of all of the temple structures. Tifa could see Cloud following the end of the staircase into a small building far below. She hurried to catch up, urging the party along until they made their way through the small building and down a few flights of stairs to a large stone landing. 

Scattered pillars stood in the still waters before them, which could, with some trouble, serve as a stair-stepping path up to a small temple dais. On the first of the pillars stood Cloud, his gaze fixed toward the dais above, on something Tifa couldn’t see.

“Aerith?” Cloud called softly. Hearing Tifa’s footsteps, Cloud waved behind himself and gave a small shake of his head to halt her approach. Tifa stopped short, looking anxiously between Cloud and the top of the dais. Was Aerith there? What was going on? Why wouldn’t Cloud let her come with him?

...come closer...

Dread suddenly washed over Tifa in a wave. The space in the chamber was oppressively still, the only sound the echo of Cloud’s boots as he carefully hopped from pillar step to pillar step, approaching the landing up to the dais. She saw him pause as he neared the top, his eyes glued to something outside of her vision. He seemed to stretch, stood a little taller, and then advanced onto the dais—drawing the buster sword.

...strike...

Obscured by the structure of the dais, Cloud moved jerkily, as though he were resisting some unseen force, until it compelled him a few steps forward, and all Tifa could see was the flash of the sword raised above his head.

...just a puppet...they put control in your hands...you pulled his strings...you are as guilty as he...

Tifa didn’t know what possessed her, but all at once she screamed, “Cloud! STOP!”

***

Aerith looked up from prayer and smiled welcomingly, even as the tip of the buster sword swerved precariously, just missing her. Cloud grunted with effort, arresting the momentum of the giant blade mid-swing and bringing it down onto the dais instead of the flower girl.

“W—what are you making me do?!” Cloud ground out in horror.

Somewhere below, gasps and urgent chatter broke out. The sounds of light boots could be heard on the pillar steps. Yuffie’s voice rang out in an alarmed screech, “Watch it! Somethin’ just hit the water!”

Aerith held Cloud’s gaze. The depths of her emerald green eyes spoke of forgiveness, faith, and unconditional love, but she said nothing. She looked up expectantly. For the briefest moment, her eyes widened in confusion and alarm. All at once an enormous mass of black leather and silver hair crashed heavily into the dais, a long slender ribbon of steel cleanly piercing Aerith through the middle.

“Aerith!” Tifa screamed from halfway down the precarious platforms.

Cloud had little time to register all that happened next. A strange golden materia in Sephiroth’s hand flickered ominously as he tucked it in an inside pocket in his long coat—Masamune still quivered from the shock of the landing above Aerith’s back—embedded deeply in the stone of the dais beneath her. Another smaller marble of materia bounced and fell from the dais as Aerith’s hair fell free from her lucky ribbon. With his hands free, Sephiroth took hold of the blade’s handle and roughly jerked the sword free of the floor and the flower girl. Cloud lunged to catch her before she crashed to the ground, and turned her face up, gently shaking her as her life drained away into his lap and her eyes glassed over.

Sephiroth stared at Aerith over Cloud’s shoulder and seemed to address her, even though Cloud feared she was already gone, “I hope we can call this little detour finished for good now. Join the planet’s energy and keep out—”

“... Shut up,” growled Cloud, shaking.

Sephiroth only huffed a laugh—a cold empty sound, devoid even of malice.

“Nothing you say means anything. Aerith is gone. She’ll never talk, or laugh, or cry, or get angry again...What about US? What are we supposed to do?! What about my pain? My fingers are numb, my mouth is dry, my eyes are burning—”

Sephiroth stared emotionlessly at the offensive sprawl before him, “I tire of listening to the endless histrionics of a miserable puppet. You are nothing to me but a tool, and a failure even at that.”

As he had done on the cargo ship, Sephiroth suddenly launched into the air, slipping gracefully through the small open skylight in the roof of the space. A horrific monstrous scream tore from beneath the level of Cloud’s sight on the dais, and the sounds of the party engaging something in combat echoed off the walls. He gently rested Aerith in the spot where he’d found her praying, and stood to grip his sword—but his hand slipped, coated so thickly in blood. He looked down and realized he was bathed in dark, sticky gore.

Cloud pitched forward with an anguished cry, clinging to his temples in agony.

_ A familiar scenic overlook. Wreckage where Midgar should stand in the distance. There’s a man with black hair, but not who he expected. Kneeling in a small patch of overgrown yellow flowers. They’ve been here together for ages and ages...  _

...and eons...

His vision wouldn’t clear, and he internally panicked as he realized he had blood in his eyes—until gentle shaking hands grasped his and placed them to his side. Delicate fingers cleared his eyes, and slender-but-strong arms closed around him, holding him in place, his face buried in long dark hair.

*******

Yuffie frowned as she looked up into the face of the same creature that had confronted them in the engine room of the cargo ship. This couldn’t be. They had killed it and watched it wash away. “You’re gonna regret messing with the great ninja Yuffie twice! This time we’ll put you down for good!”

The creature shrieked an ear piercing reply, made an unmistakably obscene gesture with a couple of its tentacles, and squared up with Yuffie.

The ninja tossed a flat look over her shoulder to her nearest companion, “Right. Kill it, Vincent,” and then she was dashing back behind the party and up the flights of stairs the way they’d come.

“Why the hell does everyone keep runnin off all the damn time?!” Barret roared, slapping a cartridge into his gun arm and unloading on the monstrosity rising from the water like a serpent.

Vincent just narrowed his glowing vermillion eyes at the creature, tanked the lashing tentacle blows intended for Yuffie, and opened fire, destroying delicate targets with precision in rapid succession—both of its eyes, its throat, and several well-aimed shots to where a heart might be housed.

Cid, standing just beyond Vincent, grunted and drew his spear, grinding his cigarette between his teeth, “Eh! Seen worse.”

Barret nearly stopped firing to turn and look at Cid with a mixture of disbelief and horror—until the pilot took a shockingly graceful running high-leap over flailing tentacles and drove his spear behind the bony ridge of the remnant’s clavicle, deep into its chest. And there he clung, digging the polearm deeper and deeper into the wound, riding the creature like a rodeo clown churning butter on the back of a mad bull.

“Not bad,” remarked Barret in a tone of pleasant surprise. He exchanged a glance with Vincent, and they both focused fire on the creature’s slender middle section, keeping their aim safely away from where Cid was busy viciously stabbing with the ferocity of a tonberry as the creature flailed, screamed, and struggled to throw him.

Red, always level headed in unexpected combat, quickly noted that the thing was drawing from the water at its base, and lobbed an ice spell to freeze the area beneath it. The creature lashed its tentacles furiously, as it was now anchored in place, only for Yuffie’s shuriken to swish through the air from far above and shave many of its limbs down to harmless flopping stumps.

Cait Sith seemed busy vigorously shuffling, dealing, and reshuffling a deck of playing cards; but it quickly became apparent that some sorcery was afoot as he threw a card straight as an arrow through the monster’s gut, eliciting an unmistakable scream of pain. With a rebounding swipe of the same paw, a second card flew at Cid, blessing him with a barrier spell. The little cat cackled, pleased with himself, and continued dealing.

At last, it seemed Vincent had taken as much combat as his constitution could handle. He abruptly dropped his pistol with an inhuman roar, and his form seemed to twist and tear and morph with his cloak. Barret found himself standing next to a berserk behemoth and backed slowly out of the creature’s field of view, so all that filled its vision was the nightmare before them.

Cid swore creatively, as the entire form of the monstrosity was rocked by the impact of the galian beast charging, all horns and uncontrolled fury.

“GROSS,” echoed unmistakably from high above, as the beast tore out the remains of the remnant’s throat, latching onto its neck and shoulders with teeth and claws and using its powerful hind legs to disembowel the apparition with rapid kicks. Cid was finally thrown free into the water as the entire thing started to melt, as it had done before on the ship.

Yuffie was suddenly back at the edge of the landing, taunting and whooping as the creature died. “See, whud I tell ya?! That’s what you get! Don’t show your ugly face around me again!”

The panting behemoth gave a careworn look back toward the tiny ninja, and shook its slathering jowls, covering her in slime. Yuffie screamed an untranslatable string of Wutaiese, and tried fruitlessly to brush the snotty clinging ooze off of herself. The beast ignored her and scrambled ungracefully off of the cracking ice sheet and back onto the landing, where it took off up the steps to recover in isolation.

Barret gave Cid a hand up onto the landing and was helping him wring the water from his clothes when Red gave a soft gasp.

“Oh no,” Cait Sith echoed.

Barret turned to look at Red, and followed his gaze up to the dais above. Tifa stood there, head and shoulders hung, face contorted in unconcealed pain, tears falling freely from her eyes. A pink ribbon was clutched in one of her hands. There was no need to ask what tragedy lay behind her; the evidence clear in the deep red and rust stains marring her white tank top.

*******

Aerith was on the dais, staring up at Sephiroth from Cloud’s lap, and the next moment her place in this newly-forged memory thread was ended. She was back in the lifestream. This wasn’t unusual, but the view that greeted her was. A great knot hung in the lines of memory beside her, binding all of the threads entering it and exiting it to one solidified unchangeable cord of time.

Aerith gaped in horror at her permanent and irrevocable death.


	11. Fireworks and Fluorescent Bulbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cid is lovingly interrogated. Aerith is on a mission.
> 
> Never trust a smiling cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever do a thing hoping someone catches on, but with... not a whole lot of hope it'll land? Yeah, me neither. HAHAHA
> 
> Happy birthday, Vincent. Double chapter post to celebrate!

**Fireworks and Fluorescent Bulbs**

**_Where and how we hide our secrets says a lot about whom they concern.  
— anonymous_ **

The second-story circular bar provided one of the few retreats from the twinkling lights and constant ringing, whistling, and electronic sirens that filled the Gold Saucer. The space where Barret, Cid, and Vincent sat looked down on the Gold Gate by the station entrance through a barrier of solid tinted glass. It suited their preference because the seating around them was more or less deserted. On the far side of the bar from where they sat, the dome of curved glass that walled and roofed the bar provided a  view up into the roller coaster in the Speed Square, and beyond that, the chocobo racing track—far more desirable seating to the average patron.

Cid, awoken after the team meeting as he was hauled up the stairs by Vincent, had insisted that he needed a nightcap before bed. Vincent and Barret had agreed to accompany him in his quest.

The rest of the party had dispersed to their rooms, but then Cait Sith had dropped in while the trio stood in line to order, informing them that a few of the party members had snuck off to enjoy the attractions. The little cat sprung for a few pitchers of Mount Corel red ale, with his seemingly inexhaustible personal stash of GP. Unable to partake, but happy to buy, he’d left them saying he’d be taking in the chocobo races and a play if anyone needed him.

“Somethin wrong with that cat. Never met a cat that generous or helpful before in my life,” mumbled Barret suspiciously, nevertheless helping himself to his pint.

“Least it's a mess of errors in our favor. Probably runnin on some shitty hacked Shinra software like everything else in this godforsaken world...outside of Wutai, anyway." Cid ranted under his breath, lighting his next cigarette with the butt of the last.

Vincent gave the pilot a long side-eyed glance over his untouched beer. "Is...software... a common problem for pilots these days?"

Cid had gotten the overview of where the party had picked up the sharp-shooter-ex-Turk and the general condition they had found him in. Nevertheless, he responded, "You really been under a rock for 20 years?"

Vincent didn’t even blink. Barret snorted.

Cid was content to go on without prompting, "Everything is computers and electronics, Vlad. They're the future. And ya can't work on hardware without working on the software too."

"I’m familiar with computers and software. Doesn't Shinra have engineers anymore?" Vincent retorted.

"Not for cancelled programs." Cid muttered bitterly.

Vincent narrowed his eyes as he watched Cait Sith disappear into  the entrance to the Ghost Square below, "If it's easy to ‘hack,’ why don't you improve the software yourself?"

Cid burst out laughing and slapped his knee, "Whaddaya think I’ve been doin? Layin around nappin all this time? Me an Shera been tryin to keep 26 up to date and in working order in case the program ever gets funded."

His mirth faded at the mention of the mousey scientist, "We’d make better progress if she could keep her damn mind on the code and out of the gutter." Cid sat back in his chair and folded his arms. It was dim in the bar, but Barret could have sworn the pilot's cheeks colored a little.

"You talkin bout the same Shera we met? Lab coat glasses Shera?" Barret questioned in disbelief. "Don't seem like the mind-in-the-gutter type."

“You don’t know the first thing about women! It’s the quiet types that always turn out to be complete freaks!” Cid lunged forward to pound his beer and reached for a pitcher to pour himself another. Finding both Barret and Vincent looking at him in obvious disapproval and skepticism, he went on, “Okay, maybe they ain't all that way, but Shera definitely is into some kinky shit. I was debugging the rocket about four months ago, and I found, uh...evidence.”

“What the HELL comin’ out yo mouth?” demanded Barret in disbelief. “You tellin us she wrote stuff in the rocket code?”

Typically unflappable and confident Cid looked ruffled. He adjusted his scarf as if it were just a little too tight and went on, “I was trying to figure out what keeps causing all the damn memory leaks. Shera’s the only one left who writes scripts or edits the source code besides me. She told me she was writing some program to make repairs easier. All this shit started after she wrote it! While I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with her program...I find...Sh...she wrote an entire kinky fanfiction commented out in the  source code!”

Vincent cleared his throat to hide a huff of laughter, finally taking a prudent sip of his ale. Barret threw his head back and gaffawed openly, drawing curious looks from the other side of the bar.

Cid, for perhaps the first time since they had met him, looked genuinely uncomfortable. “I don’t wanna get into the detail—”

“Oh HELL no, son. You tellin us everything now,” cackled Barret, topping up Cid’s pint glass before seeing to his own.

Cid suddenly looked really interested in what was going on down in the Gold Gate below. “Oh hey! Whaddaya suppose he’s up to?” Cid gestured at the window, as Cloud passed through the foyer headed from the Chocobo Square to the Ghost Square.

“Nevermind Spiky. Probably just headed to bed. I wanna know more about this story.”

Vincent didn’t make a sound, but his eyes may have crinkled just slightly at the corners in mischief as he applied a penetrating stare to the pilot.

“Ah, f’the’lova Shiva’s tits,” seeing his companions wouldn’t let him off the hook, Cid started, “Well, it was broken up into comments all through the code. It was about this, ahhh...heroic pilot in the Wutai war.”

“Go on...”

“And there’s this rocket scientist working on the program, and she falls in love with the pilot.” Cid tapped at the table with obvious discomfort.

“Uh huh...”

“Uh...And the pilot is a pretty big asshole to everyone all the time, but I guess...the rocket scientist is kinda hot for that? Or somethin—Hey! What’er those two doing?” Cid was again trying to change the subject by pointing out the window.

Aerith was pulling an obviously hesitant Tifa by the arm from the entrance to the Wonder Square toward the Ghost Square. Even at this distance, it was plain to see the flower girl was up to something—her face split from cheek to cheek with a beaming grin.

Tifa was blushing from her neck to the tips of her ears, her free hand clapped over the lower part of her face to hide as much of her expression as she could, heels dug into the golden floor like a mule. She was shaking her head wildly in protest, but Aerith wouldn’t be put off of her mission. She stopped for a moment, and turned back to say something, all bright cheer and smiles, a finger wagging instructively in the air. Tifa’s eyes widened further, and she scrambled like a stray cat trying to extricate herself from Aerith’s grip.

It should have been easy for the martial artist to break Aerith’s hold and flee, but either by some enchantment or, more likely, a lack of real protest to the situation unfolding, Tifa was eventually dragged away toward the hotel and whatever doom the flower girl had planned for her.

“Maybe we should go help...” ventured Cid hopefully.

“Tifa’s fine. Just the girls havin fun. You were sayin...”

Cid seemed to deflate. He coughed and rummaged in his pockets for another cigarette, “Uh...oh yeah. Um...So the pilot pretends to only give a shit about his plane or something, but uh...he’s kinda into the rocket scientist. Kinda...blames her for everything that goes wrong with all his shit, even when it’s his own fault—cuz he’s trying to cover up his feelings or something.” Cid coughed some more, fidgeting with his carton of cigarettes.

“Hmm...” mused Vincent.

“Ah...the rocket scientist has a real kink for humiliation...and she’s like...really hot when she takes off her glasses and lets her hair down. ...they start fucking.”

“Somehow I get the feelin you’re tryin to skimp on the details here...Sounds more like a romance novel than a porno.” Barret rumbled, with a slightly threatening twinkle in his eye, “I wouldn’t want this conversation to go beyond this bar...”

Cid threw his head down on his arms on the table top, and groaned, “Come on, man. How the fuck did we end up talkin about this anyway?”

Barret and Vincent exchanged a glance over the pilot’s back. Vincent’s monotone answer was just audible above the sounds of the bar, “You brought it up.”

Barret roared with laughter, wiping tears from his eyes, “He’s gotcha there, fly-boy.”

Cid sat up miserably and rolled his eyes. “All I meant was ya gotta be self sufficient to make it in this world. Fuckin...Shinra never gonna do you any favors...always gotta check the source code yourself.”

...follow the yellow flowers...

Vincent, deciding to steer the conversation in a different direction, fell into old Turk interrogation methods, “... why didn’t you just delete the program to eliminate the problem?”

Cid stammered, “Ah.. well...I thought I could fix it. Shera had a good idea, and I didn’t want to redo work.”

Vincent continued with leading statements, “You could fix the problem by deleting the program. The problem you have now is more dangerous than the problem it was meant to solve. You could start over.”

Cid seemed to be turning a bit scarlet as Vincent pressed his logic. He again pointed to the window. “Oh shit!”

It was another obvious attempt to deflect their attention, but at least this time the distraction was warranted. Tifa and Cloud were emerging from the Ghost Square, walking decidedly closer together than they typically did. Tifa’s blush was a bit lighter, but her gaze still fell to her boots, lifting occasionally to say something to the swordsman with an earnest and hopeful smile. Casting about the space, she patted his arm gently and pointed toward the Event Square. Her brows raised in a query, she said something, and Cloud gave a curt nod—the thin line of his mouth unmoved, but the set of his eyes warm and soft—almost as if he might smile.

...I promise...

Tifa did smile, brightly and prettily, as she finally straightened up and led Cloud by the arm. As their two party members disappeared from view into the Event Square, Barret chuckled. “Those two are hopeless. Cute as hell, but hopeless. Wanna knock their heads together sometimes...”

Vincent cleared his throat, and Cid shrank back in his chair, realizing he was still on the hook to answer for his illogical decision making.

“Listen...I don’t  _ really _ wanna hurt Shera.. and...”

“...and?”

“AND...her story wasn’t finished. I was just tryin to let her finish before I wiped the whole thing out...But she kinda stalled out writing on it at the part where the pilot should...propose or something...” a momentary flash of sadness clouded Cid’s eyes, but was quickly gone as he put away the last of his second pint.

“Hopeless,” diagnosed Vincent.

Cid sputtered in his beer and plunked his glass down looking between his companions.

Barret nodded in agreement, “Mmmhmm. Surrounded by em in this crew.”

Cid folded his arms indignantly, “Don’t lump me in with those two! If you think this is some kinda romantic bullshit between Shera and me, you’re wrong! I can’t stand the woman, she’s ruined everything that matters to me, and she never meant for me to see any of it...”

“But you won’t ruin something that matters to her,” Vincent accused pointedly, “And you insisted on searching the entire source code of this program to locate and read all of this story.”

“...And somehow you don’t think she knew you’d find that hidden  code tryin to fix the problem?” questioned Barret.

“He didn’t even try to fix the problem. He found it four months ago. He read the story and watched for updates." concluded Vincent with finality.

Cid choked as Vincent gave the slightest shake of his head. The trio sat quietly for a while. Three sets of eyes followed when Cloud and Tifa emerged from the Event Square, Tifa laughing contagiously and Cloud unmistakably smirking in kind. They meandered to the Round Square in no great hurry.

“Well, maybe there’s hope for a few of em after all...” Barret crooned.

Cid was abruptly scrambling to his feet, “Well this has been fun. I’m going to bed.” He tossed a few gil on the table to leave the bar tenders a round, and strode out of the door with his hands jammed deep in his pockets.

Barret and Vincent stared out the window in a long companionable silence.

Eventually Barret ventured, “Wonder how that story’ll end...”

Vincent blinked, “Which one?”

Barret chuckled and turned to look at Vincent with new appreciation shining warmly in his eyes, “You know, man, you’re pretty damn—”

Vincent was abruptly on his feet, “Have to go now.”

“Huh? Wha—” Before Barret could properly process what he’d said, or whether or not it was an invitation to follow, Vincent was already disappearing through the door.

“What the hell?!” Below, Barret could see Cloud and Tifa emerging from the Round Square. On the far side of the foyer, Cait Sith darted into the entrance to the Battle Square. Barret watched in confusion as Cloud and Tifa gave chase. They didn’t reemerge, and Barret had no idea where Vincent had gone. Sensibly he made his way down to the foyer and toward the Ghost Square to wait for the rest of the party to return.

When they did, there was a distinctly awkward tension in the air between Tifa, Cloud, Vincent, and the cat, but none of them would answer any of his questions. Tifa, wouldn’t even look him in the eyes, while Cloud insisted that they head directly to bed and talk about it in the morning.

Barret acquiesced but couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone suddenly and horribly wrong.


	12. Recall of Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The planet drops hints. Aerith gets a strange materia.

**Recall of Flowers**

**_I’m asking your imagination to stretch into some places your memories cannot.  
— anonymous_ **

The planet cried more urgently than ever as Zack and Aerith studied the relatively small but momentous cord of time.

“This cord is just like the one I found in the mako—the one that contains my childhood,” said Aerith, trying to keep the anxious edge out of her voice for Zack’s benefit. His energy had been nearly crackling with concern ever since he’d rejoined her and realized she was frightened.

Aerith looked around and noted again that, without exception, the memory threads that enclosed this portion of her life entered the cord. What's more, it seemed that if there had been memories where she lived beyond this time or died another way, they no longer existed, now so lost to her that she couldn't even remember if there had been many or few. Even though these alternatives had vanished from her mind, she still felt the loss—not of memories and events now forgotten, but for the lost possibilities they might have offered.

The dread of being hemmed into oblivion washed over her again. A great deal more was at stake than just a few of her futures. All life and the very planet itself—all of her friends—were at risk.

“I can’t exactly say how things have changed, but I know this wasn’t here when I started remembering the thread. I think I watched him do this.”

Zack nodded, an unusually serious set to his features. “What was different this time? Tell me everything you saw.”

“The events are always really similar, but this time he was there in person. I’m sure of it. And he was holding the sword differently. He had something else in his hands. I’m pretty sure it was materia, but it was a gold color that I haven’t seen before.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t just command materia?”

Aerith nodded, ”The color was wrong, and he didn’t have it equipped. He was activating it independently. I only saw it for a split second, but I’m certain. I went back and remembered the cord to be sure.”

Zack grunted thoughtfully, “SOLDIER training only covered common battle materia. I didn’t know others existed until… well... “ He made a vague gesture at the expanse of the lifestream around them.

“I always wondered if there were other uncommon materia because of the Holy materia from my mother. Now I know about Meteor and Diverge. There might be more.” Aerith looked around herself again at the sheer mass and volume of the memory threads, “Given how old this cycle is, and how many memories exist, there are probably a lot of possibilities out there that we don’t know about.”

Zack made a snapping motion and waved a finger in the air, “I think I have a thought.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Aerith teased.

He gave her a roguish smirk, “Possibilities and options are probably what Seph is counting on. If that materia does this,” he waved at the cord, “He could just end us in a hurry, right?” Zack poked at his temples with focus, “But he’s a total narcissist. He wants to go out on a big win. And to create one, he needs a lot of possibilities… So maybe that’s why he’s not using this thing a lot. It takes away options.”

“Do you think he did this to put me off of visiting the memories he hates? Or for revenge because I wouldn’t stop visiting them?”

“Probably both. But that gives me another thought. I bet it would really piss him off if you had this materia and solidified some things you like.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not going to agree to loan it to me. I don’t think he planned for me to even see it.” The planet’s wails rose in pitch, causing Aerith to look around with grave concern. “It’s so desperate to be heard, but I don’t understand what it means.”

Zack cocked his head to the side, “Well, what’s the gist? Maybe it’s trying to help.”

“It implores me to follow the yellow flowers over and over. Sometimes it rumbles about reunion. I know the yellow flowers that symbolize reunion, but I’ve hunted countless memories in the church and my garden at mom’s house. I haven’t found anything unusual.”

Zack hummed, “I always found a lot of materia in your garden and between the floorboards in the church. Maybe you missed something—or maybe it means something else. Maybe you need to follow some other yellow flowers.”

Aerith considered, “I know another spot I could try, but I … don’t think I have direct access to it when the flowers are there anymore.”

Zack shrugged, “Worth a shot, if it’s not out of your way.”

Aerith’s energy rocked back and forth deep in thought for a time. At length she mused, “If there used to be futures where I lived, and they’re gone now, that means they’re not just gone from our memory; they’re gone from the planet’s too. That means, using that materia may have reduced the lifestream a little. Maybe even the mako."

Zack continued her line of thought for her, “Maybe even materia?”

“Maybe. It depends on how long the memories that are gone persisted.” She sighed, “I was never very good at this theoretical stuff, but I’m starting to feel like it may be really important.”

“I’m not great at it either, but we have to be aware of every possible strategic advantage at our disposal. Fewer memories to search instead of more? That’s a first, and sounds like a win for us.” Zack gave the cord a pat, “Maybe you’re a blessing in disguise, buddy.”

“If I could get that materia, I wonder if I could use it to make Sephiroth forget what he’s doing.”

Zack looked thoughtful, “I think you could, but if you did, we’d forget too, and it might mean getting rid of all of the best memories. Could also cause some other problem. You said memories that persist a long time are more likely to make materia. If you use the materia and collapse the memory that it came from...then what happens?”

Aerith drooped because he was right. That couldn’t be the best answer—and could even be dangerous. What if she caused a paradox? What would happen to the planet? She wondered if this was Sephiroth’s same conundrum—while his intentions were the exact opposite of hers, it was harder to devise a satisfying plan for using the mysterious materia than she had initially assumed. What was keeping Sephiroth from wiping out the events of the long memory threads? Why wouldn’t he want to make himself forget? Did he know more about a paradox’s consequences than they did? Thinking about it made her head hurt.

“But,” Zack added lightly, “If you could get that materia and reduce the lifestream and mako that has divergence points, it would also reduce Sephiroth’s options. Might make him desperate, but it might also give us an edge!”

“If I could get my hands on that materia...we’d have to think carefully about how to use it, and act quickly before he took notice.”

The planet seemed to moan sorrowfully in the lull in their conversation. “ **_...reunion...follow the yellow flowers..._ ** “

Zack said at length, “Where is it? The other spot with the yellow flowers you mentioned?”

She looked a little discomfited, “...Where you returned to the planet. I only pass the spot once in most memories, but,” she looked down the lines that spread away from the cord, away at some great distance where they eventually dipped back into the mako ocean, “Cloud spends time there sometimes in many futures. Lots of time in deep futures of the best lines. It’s the first place in the wastes that grows flowers again when the planet starts to recover...and the last in its decline.”

Zack laughed, “No shit! Heh. Cloud’s a lot more sentimental than he’d like anyone to know.”

Aerith smiled, “You can say that again. I’ll have an extra look around the next time I’m there. Won’t hurt...too much.”

***

Time passed, and Aerith searched the same locations memory after memory, thread by thread. It was time consuming, because as ever, the threads only continued to multiply in volume. Still, the planet urged her on with its ceaseless howls, until at last she encountered what she’d been seeking in a relatively short but very old thread.

The rain fell lightly on the wastes, wetting the cracked, dusty soil to a gritty mud that crunched under the party’s footfalls as they made their way along the road from Midgar toward Kalm.

Barret had suggested the party split and travel separately so that if some of them encountered Shinra, there would still be free allies to arrange a recovery. When Cloud had suggested Barret take Red and follow the rougher footpaths out of the wastes, Barret had snorted, “Figured you’d do something like that.” He motioned for Red to lead the way, and the two had departed. “See y’all in Kalm,” Barret tossed casually over a shoulder with a wave of his hand, “Keep em outta trouble, Tifa.”

Now Tifa, Cloud, and Aerith were left to make their way along the rainy roads as Midgar slowly grew smaller in the distance. Cloud tried to keep them moving at a respectable military pace, but Aerith had a tendency to wander off the road frequently, poking around at thorny scrub vegetation, giving encouragement to weeds, and picking up pretty pebbles to show to Tifa.

At some point Aerith suddenly halted in the middle of the road and insisted that they rest. Cloud called a brief stop, noting in frustration that Aerith had selected the remains of some Shinra training field—littered with broken and abandoned gear—to make this demand. He leaned against a craggy cliff wall, sullenly grumbling that this was an unsafe place to stop and that they were probably going to have to camp in the muddy wastes due to these delays. While Tifa snuck away for privacy to take care of biological needs, Aerith marched off the road in the direction of the bluffs and overlooks that provided a view of the city. She was followed by the voice of the ex-SOLDIER raised in annoyance, “I thought you wanted to rest!”

It was midmorning, and the sun’s warmth was just starting to pick up intensity. The moisture from the rain was evaporating, raising ghostly clouds of vapor from one particularly prominent overlook. Aerith trotted to the place and looked at the city in the distance, dropping to a crouch when the waves of dizziness overcame her—green sparks edging the periphery of her vision. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but this view—this spot—this sky—was never easy to confront. She placed her hands on the ground to steady herself and was surprised to feel one hand sink in cold gritty mud while the other alighted on a very warm, dry sandy spot.

She looked down at where her hand rested. Nothing seemed particularly special, besides the fact that the spot was dry. Carefully, she disturbed the dusty sand, digging her fingers into it. It gave without much resistance to even warmer dry soil below, until her nails tapped against something hard. She turned and dug with both hands until at last she could plunge a hand beneath the object and pull it free of the earth. The dust fell away from a strange materia that glimmered in the rays of the morning sun.

The first thing that occurred to Aerith was that it was beautiful—the most beautiful materia she’d ever seen. Its base was round and full, and it tapered to a point reminiscent of a teardrop. She had thought at first glance that the thing was gold; but it was instead clear as flawless glass, with fibrous golden inclusions winding through it like a rutilated quartz. The next thing that occurred to her, was that it was hot. With a gasp of surprise, she let it fall to the wet soil as holding it by hand became uncomfortable. After letting it cool for a moment on the ground, she picked it back up and equipped it in the inner pocket in her jacket.

...Reunion...Memory of the Hero...Enables the wielder to converge memories deemed truthful and just into a single memory which cannot be unwritten, reversed, or modified...Unwrites all illusionary memories that contradict the committed memory...In the oblivion of mako and confronting the past, the Hero learned to forget. And then he taught the planet...

A feeling of extraordinary excitement and relief fluttered in Aerith’s chest, as the warm materia whispered its name to her heart.  _ Reunion. _ She felt like she’d accomplished an impossible task. The overcast sky broke, and bright warm rays of light poured down on her, weaving ribbons of rainbows through the mist, as if the planet were smiling too.

She would keep this strange materia equipped through this new memory, and would find out soon enough how it might be put to use. Unfortunately, as she stood up, her vertigo reasserted itself. She turned away from the cliff and hurried back to the road where Cloud waited, tapping a foot impatiently. Tifa brightened seeing her return and asked if Aerith had seen anything interesting.

“Some really nice rich, sandy soil that would make flowers really happy. I’ll have to remember whenever I come home.”

Cloud didn’t even attempt to keep the scorn out of his voice, “You saw...some dirt?”

Tifa shot Cloud a pointed  _ be nice _ look, and smiled at the flower girl, “I’ll help you remember, and I’ll help you plant some flowers here too. When we come home.”

Aerith giggled with delight, “And when we build your new bar, I’ll cover every inch of it in flowers.”

The two women dashed ahead, arm in arm, Aerith eagerly questioning Tifa about her favorite flowers. Cloud looked on in confusion at what had just transpired, and trotted to catch up.


	13. Thoughts in Her Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hojo 'splains it all. Cloud behaves like a teenage punk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta reader made a [ whiteboard fanart of the story. ](https://www.deviantart.com/smolmitten/art/FF7-Whiteboard-Doodle-858365987) It's so adorable, I got her permission to share it.
> 
> For fun, we found some references for what the strange materia might look like. You can buy them! ha!
> 
> [ Diverge ](https://www.amazon.com/Devotional-Spiritual-Cleansing-Metaphysical-Balancing/dp/B00LXI0N1E)
> 
> [ Reunion ](https://www.etsy.com/listing/270540568/rutilated-quartz-cabochon-sagenite)
> 
> Here, just beyond the planned halfway point, I wanted to say thank you. If you've been reading since the start or you're just starting to read, I really appreciate you. It's very exciting to see your responses. I feel like my writing is slowly improving in the directions I want, so thanks! Things get a little harder on my end from here on out. Wish me luck as I try to steer this thing home in a mutually satisfying way.

**Thoughts in Her Heart**

**_Eavesdropping's a sin, but ignorance is fatal. Take your pick.  
— E. Bear_ **

It was difficult to tell exactly what was going on inside the tiny bathroom at the Costa Del Sol Inn, but it sounded like Barrett was calling his daughter on the PHS, weeping, while trying to escape the confines of his sailor suit with his one good arm. Tired of the innkeeper persistently asking him to pay for Barret’s stay and assorted upcharges associated with his use of the bathroom, Cloud had taken off to investigate other accommodation options after pocketing the party’s mastered All materia. Aerith and Tifa had exchanged glances and decided to change and go for a swim before the innkeeper came knocking on their door looking for additional fees and expenses.

As the women walked through the city center toward the beachfront, they spotted Red napping in the town square, his tail playing kickball with some of the local children. Yuffie was “selling” materia at a seedy part time job—pocketing most of her wares.

Soon Tifa and Aerith stood at the bottom of the beach access stairs, staring in disbelief at the scene before them. In the shade of a nearby palm tree, reclining in a lounger surrounded by women, was none other than professor Hojo, still wearing his Shinra-branded lab coat.

Hojo wasn’t aware that they had arrived, his voice carrying to where they stood but his words indistinct. Aerith and Tifa were dressed for a swim—Tifa in a simple deep-blue bikini and Aerith in a petal-pink one piece. They had both secured their hair in high ponytails to keep it out of their eyes in the ocean. Even if they were spotted, it was unlikely they would be recognized without some scrutiny.

Aerith caught Tifa's arm and placed a finger to her lips. Tifa nodded and allowed Aerith to draw them a little closer behind the entourage so they could listen out of the scientist’s sight. They pretended to visit quietly with one another to blend in with the vacationers that crowded the area. The women facing them from Hojo’s side didn’t give the eavesdroppers a second glance. A slender brunette was refilling Hojo’s cocktail glass from a pitcher and giggling indulgently, leaning in over his lap to provide a view of her ample bust, barely concealed in her bikini top. It made Aerith’s stomach turn.

“...I suppose SOLDIERs have some attractive characteristics,” Hojo was pontificating, “but they are completely artificial from a scientific perspective. Barely human. They owe their physical enhancements to me, and none of them are particularly intellectually gifted. Their pay scale is well below that of a Turk—vastly inferior to a director of the Shinra science department.” He made no effort to hide the boast in his remark.

“But how do you make their eyes so pretty, professor? Back-alley mako junkies don’t have bright glowing eyes...” Asked one of the women in a breathy sigh, brushing a hand along his coat sleeve with adoration.

“It’s merely a side effect of the level of mako exposure.” He was facing away from them, but Aerith could hear the smug grin in his voice. “I could easily make your eyes glow the same way, but the side effects and risks make it inadvisable.”

A deeply tan woman with sun-bleached hair cocked her head coquettishly and asked, “Professor, how do the SOLDIERs survive the mako exposure? Isn’t it poisonous and addictive?”

He regarded her with an air of kindly forbearing condescension, “You wouldn’t understand, dear, but I can try to explain it simply.” He sipped his cocktail and went on in an instructive tone, “We evolved on this planet, so we are naturally susceptible to the elements of its life cycle. We are not intended to make contact with mako until after we pass away, making exposure highly toxic. Nevertheless, refined mako is addictive due to its hallucinogenic properties. SOLDIER candidates have a rare genetic resistance to the hallucinogenic effects of mako, and can be exposed to higher levels to achieve enhancement. To resist the toxic effects, SOLDIERs must be implanted with exoDNA through a spinal tap procedure. I can’t tell you more than that. The rest is proprietary to Shinra.”

“Oh, you’re so brilliant, professor,” the girl fawned.

One of the women facing away from Tifa and Aerith sighed, “I think I’d take my chances if my eyes could glow like Sephiroth’s.”

The girls giggled.

“Don’t be vapid on my dime,” the professor suddenly snapped at the women, “The worst side effects are too grotesque to be endured by _ females. _ That’s why president Shinra wisely limited the SOLDIER program to male participants—and only to the lowest and most brutish examples there-of.”

“Aw, professor. Don’t discriminate,” whined the girl, tossing her curly black hair flirtatiously, “I’m sure any gender can make an excellent SOLDIER.”

“Tell me, my dear, are you familiar with chronic wasting disease?” Aerith wasn’t familiar with the disease, but she was familiar with the tone in the professor’s voice—he reserved it for acts of supreme cruelty.

“Is that the disease that makes animals crazy? And you can get it by eating their meat?” asked the blonde tentatively.

“Very good. Crude but correct. Spongiform encephalopathy expressed in CWD is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. Prions can transmit their misfolded shape to normal proteins, causing them to multiply out of control and kill their host’s nerve cells, primarily in the brain. Most sufferers are genetically predisposed or are exposed by consuming products from an infected animal, but there are many prion-related diseases, and some can be caused by random mutations.”

...mother consumed her ill-begotten son...at the crown of the planet...she dreams in madness...bending, warping, folding the memory of Gaia...duplicating the threads of all known time without rest...

The professor paused in his lecture to help himself to another sip of his cocktail. The women listened in silence, sensing the danger in the professor’s irritation.

“One example is the extraordinarily rare disease, Fatal Insomnia. It isn’t publicized, but mako exposure on the levels required for the SOLDIER program results in an exponential rise in mutations associated with FI. FI cases occur in nearly 4% of all SOLDIER candidates. Do you know what happens to those SOLDIERs, my dear?”

The woman he questioned silently shook her head.

“When it naturally occurs, sufferers are diagnosed as it gradually causes loss of coordination, severe sleep disturbance, and sometimes episodes of dementia or personality shift. But the SOLDIER enhancements prevent many of the typical symptoms from expressing. Instead the SOLDIER may suddenly find himself unable to sleep for days on end. Since the ability to go without sleep is a SOLDIER enhancement, even that may not alert them that anything is wrong. Most are only discovered after their personality wildly—often catastrophically—changes. One day, the SOLDIER is simply a different person, and frequently, he may violently—most often fatally—turn on those closest to him. As I said before, even when the process is successful without complication, they’re still rendered effectively sub-human. Their lifespans are typically shortened...older models are prone to extreme genetic degradation.”

The professor shook his drink at the brunette beside him, and she hesitantly refilled it again.

“So, my dear, if you would like glowing eyes with a one-in-twenty-five risk of never sleeping again and randomly murdering your loved ones, let me know. I’d be delighted to pencil you into my schedule to shorten your lifespan. And if you insist on sleeping with SOLDIERs, sleep with one eye open...not that it will do you any good.”

The small entourage sat in uncomfortable silence—the women shifting awkwardly around the self-satisfied professor. Of course, everyone had heard stories about out-of-control SOLDIERs hurting and killing people in a rage...sometimes completely by accident. Many stories were of a sordid nature—whispered by giggling and blushing idiots implying more about the sexual stamina and aggression of SOLDIERs rather than the dangers of keeping their company. There were even rumors that you had to sign a personal injury waiver with Shinra to get a legal marriage license with one, but this...

“Professor,” the blonde asked tentatively, “the exoDNA doesn’t stop the prions?”

“No, but excellent question. There might be a career in science for you yet.” Hojo said with biting sarcasm. “If anything, there are some preliminary indications that the prions may affect the behavior of the source organism, but more testing is required to confirm that hypothesis. The source is highly rarified—too valuable to be wasted for groundless hypothetical testing.”

The professor carelessly shrugged one shoulder. “We just study what can be recovered from the SOLDIERs that perish, but there typically isn’t much left. They’re almost always just as self destructive as they are murderous.”

A redheaded woman who had been busying herself massaging the professor’s feet suddenly perked up and offered, “Let’s talk about something more fun. Professor, you’re still going to take us to karaoke tonight, right? I can’t wait to hear you sing Midgar Blues again...”

“You always were my favorite. You stick to what you’re good at.” The professor stretched his toes, and the woman moaned lewdly, threading her fingers between them.

Aerith had watched Tifa grow paler and paler as Hojo spoke, the same distant look in her eyes that had haunted her since their battle on the cargo ship. The flower girl gently took Tifa’s hand and started back toward the beach access, just as Cloud was trotting down the stairs toward them with a set of mysterious keys in hand.

Cloud still hadn’t noticed Hojo, his eyes glued to Tifa in a strange mix of concern and awe. Aerith gave him a poke in the shoulder to break his stare, and pointed toward the professor. “Cloud, do you think you could get rid of him so we can go swimming?”

Cloud took quick stock of the situation behind them, glanced once more at the fearful look on Tifa’s face, and scowled. “My pleasure,” he ducked past them, jamming the keys in his pocket and gripping the hilt of his sword.

Tifa watched anxiously as Cloud trudged through the sand making a beeline for the scientist. “Should we go get the others?”

“No, let’s wait a moment and see what happens. We’ll back him up if he needs us,” Aerith nodded toward Cloud, encouraging Tifa to watch as the confrontation unfolded before them.

Cloud took a commanding position at the end of the professor’s lounger behind the redheaded woman, blocking the sun. “Hojo.” Cloud spat darkly.

The redhead startled and scrambled to join her companions next to the lounger as the professor looked over his spectacles and grinned, “Ah, Cloud, wasn’t it? Ladies, here’s an example of some of my less exemplary work,” he motioned to Cloud. “An excellent specimen physically, but so mentally weak to mako poisoning, we had to expand the standard scale to accommodate him.”

The women tittered politely at the professor’s jab, even as their eyes hungrily crawled over Cloud’s well muscled form and lovely face.

“What are you doing here?” Cloud growled, drawing the buster sword.

“I suspect I’m here for the same reason you are; but right now, I’m getting a tan, obviously,” laughed the professor, still wrapped snugly in his lab coat.

“Beach is closed,” snarled Cloud. He swiftly stuck the buster sword beneath the lounger flat-side-up and lifted, unceremoniously dumping the professor feet-over-shoulders in a twisted pile under beach-chair wreckage and disturbed sand. The women screamed, several jumping to their feet and breaking off to flee the beach and the dangerous SOLDIER.

“You’re frightening my entertainment away,” Hojo chuckled as he extracted himself stiffly from under the mangled beach lounger and dusted himself off. Then he looked over Cloud with an unwholesome curiosity gleaming in his eyes, “Tell me something, and I’ll be on my way...”

Cloud’s face contorted in anger. He looked on the verge of striking, but the professor went on unphased, “Do you ever feel like you’re being drawn somewhere? Any irresistible urges to do things against your will?”

“No and no. Now get out of my sight.”

“Interesting. Very interesting.” The professor straightened his lab coat and unhurriedly started for the beach access, accompanied by his few remaining companions who hadn’t fled. Cloud watched him go, still bristling with rage, prepared to end the man if he so much as looked at Tifa or Aerith wrong. But Hojo never even glanced at them. Eventually, he disappeared into the tourist crowded streets of Costa Del Sol above.

Cloud plunged the buster sword into the sand, staking claim to Hojo’s prime beachfront spot, and cleared away the destroyed lounger so Aerith and Tifa could leave their towels in the shade. To ensure no one else bothered them, he sat down and made himself comfortable—and prominent—in the sand, leaning against the sword to keep watch.

Aerith smiled at Tifa and tugged her by the hand to the edge of the waves, “Come on! We might not get the chance to swim again for a while! Let’s make the best of it. We’ll be fine now! We have a lifeguard.”

Unfortunately that very fact made Tifa feel suddenly self conscious. She blushed and wrapped her arms around herself modestly, wading into the waves. “Aerith, about what the professor was saying...”

Aerith looked up from the seashell she was poking in the wet sand, “Mm?”

“About all that prion stuff...Do you think it could happen to...?”

Aerith giggled, “If you’re worried about Cloud, don’t be. He’s healthier than a spring chocobo. And he might be a light sleeper, but you’ve seen how grouchy he gets if he has to pull an all-nighter.” Aerith made her best impression of a sour Cloud face, and stomped with cartoonish exaggeration into the water next to Tifa, splashing her liberally with salty sea water.

Tifa couldn’t help but break down laughing—the impression was hilarious, but she could see Cloud’s reaction to it beyond the flower girl, his mouth tugged down at the corners, his arms folded, brows pinched in an unamused pout. He was killing her.

Tifa laughed until her eyes watered, as Aerith kept up her ridiculous impersonation.

***

Cloud rolled his eyes at Aerith’s back. Slowly his face relaxed as his gaze drifted back to Tifa, still smiling, half soaked from Aerith’s splashing. He didn’t mind being teased if it made Tifa smile like that—like nothing in her world was wrong. He wondered if she would smile so brightly when he told her he’d traded their mastered All materia for a private villa in the city center over the bar she had admired when they arrived. He studied her as she engaged Aerith in a splashing war—her skin glowing in the tropical sun’s rays and her form perfect as she delivered a devastating punch to the water, tossing Aerith back with a wave and gales of laughter. Tifa was beautiful—more than beautiful. She was more than he could ever hope to explain with words.

...I wondered...would you ever let me bring you...just the two of us...anything for one more moment...

Cloud’s eyes widened in panic, and he quickly snatched the towels spread on the sand on either side of him to cover his lap, blushing profusely.


	14. Behind the Veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith befriends a rock and has a mid-death crisis.

**Behind the Veil**

**_You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.  
— C.S. Lewis_ **

Reunion, like Diverge, was of little use as Aerith completed her journey through the newly forged memory where she collected and mastered it. It wasn’t because she couldn’t figure out how to activate it. Every time she held the strange golden materia, it blazed hot in her hands with promise—eager to bind her will into cords of memory—until she dropped it like a hot popoto. Rather, she feared the impact its use might have. She wanted to be certain she and Zack formulated a strategy before she wielded the materia’s power.

In spite of the discomfort endured when handling it for too long, she felt compelled to study Reunion whenever the opportunity presented itself. It was captivating. Unlike Diverge, which sometimes felt discomfiting, seductive, and invasive to use, Reunion made her heart sing with confidence—intangible certainty, rightness, and justice. Although it quickly became uncomfortable, she still wanted to hold it, admire it—adore it. It never  _ actually _ burned her. Like a too-hot cup of tea, she would cradle it a while in her hands until it became too much and then set it down, comforted and pleased by its presence. It was a pleasure to feel its warmth in her jacket pocket and reassuring to place her hands over it when the chill of the advancing winter numbed her fingers as they traveled.

It felt almost like heartbreak when at last she mastered Reunion and realized she would be forced to abandon it. The beautiful golden materia did not split, but now she knew that she carried its power with her innately, just as she had carried Diverge’s. She could have kicked herself for not thinking through the potential consequences of forging a new memory that would inevitably have to pass through the cord which bound her death. She knew that she did not physically carry Reunion with her in the memory cord that now defined the end of her life, and her only knowledge of it was from the brief glimpse she caught as she perished. Fearing paradox, she hoped it would be enough to simply physically abandon the strange materia, and let the events play out as they had. She reluctantly left Reunion in the shallows of the lake around the shell structure in the center of the City of the Ancients, near where her companions would soon leave her body for the last time.

When the time came, the events of the cord played out just as they were required, and soon she was back in the lifestream—leading her to suspect Reunion was capable of reconciling small differences in new memories forced to bind with the numerous memories it converged. It would make sense, given divergence points could still be forged from lines of memory in the threads before the cord. And somewhere out there in the vast landscape of lines was the current timeline being forged as the planet’s natural cycle continued. She hadn’t seen it in ages, it was so buried, but Reunion must naturally accommodate it somehow.

Still, she had little desire to test the limits of Reunion’s capabilities, for fear of doing irreparable damage. She might meddle and change memory a little here or there, but destroy the wrong memory with a strange materia, erasing the memory from which it propagated, and it was impossible to say what the consequence would be. She had taken a careless but necessary risk; luck alone gave her this chance reprieve. She would be more careful in the future.

...deja vu...just because you can’t remember doesn’t mean you never knew...

Aerith wasted no time summoning Zack from his slumber. His form sat up sleepily from the lifestream, extricating himself from it as though he were squeezing out of a pair of extremely tight skinny jeans. “I’m up, I’m up...What did I miss?” He asked, stretching languidly.

“I found it—the materia Sephiroth used to make the cords. The planet guided me. It’s called Reunion.”

“That’s my angel,” Zack beamed, “Told you there’s nothin’ you can’t do if you put your mind to it. Fitting name, I guess. Have you tried to use it?”

“No, but it took me a while to find it, and I think I have an idea.”

Zack held her close in his warm soothing energy, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’ve agonized a lot about how dangerous this power could be. If I make a mistake, I don’t know what will happen. But what can the harm be if we undo some of this?” She motioned to the seemingly endless forest of branches, all composed of countless threads of memory. “It’s not meant to be this way. The planet is in pain. I think we can clear some of it with this, otherwise Gaia never would have wanted me to have it.”

“You might be right. About the best confirmation we have is that it’s the opposite of how Seph has used it so far. I say go for it.” He looked around them at the sheer scale of her task, and asked, “A lot all at once? Or just bit by bit?”

“Bit by bit. I want to correct the worst of what he’s done.” She thought of all of the terrible endings Sephiroth had forged in the time they had been traveling these memories—the awful endings that made it hard to sleep when she revisited her lifetimes.

Her heavy thoughts must have shown in her energy. Zack made a sound of concern, and squeezed her, “That’s always been important to you, and it’ll be a step in the right direction, whatever happens. Which lines will you use?”

Aerith drew Zack to the tiny cord which housed her death and gently ran her fingers through the countless threads that exited it towards so many futures, “These ones. The longest ones. My favorites. I’m going to pick all of the best outcomes from among these memories. All of the happiest moments for everyone we love. This is the legacy I want to leave in the planet’s memory for the living.”

Zack smiled, “Good choice.”

“And as long as we preserve the longest threads—I have a theory. It’s kind of hard to explain...”

“Try me?”

“The materia—they could have come from any Ancient’s memory, right?”

“I guess so. In SOLDIER training, we were told they were the memories of Ancient mages, summoners, and skilled warriors.”

“All of those memories are condensed into mako. Bear with me here,” she said wryly, “What if you don’t have to be an “Ancient” for your memories to crystalize into materia—what if your memory just has to be ancient?”

Zack scratched his scalp through his wild hair thoughtfully, “I guess we wouldn’t know because humans never existed long enough to find out if it’s possible.”

Aerith nodded, “But now you have. There are eons and eons of recorded human lives here, and many start and end in the mako ocean. Even our own memories have been here so long...and...I don’t know how to put this any other way, but I felt like I  _ knew _ Reunion.”

Zack looked confused—maybe even a little skeptical, but he shrugged at length and smiled, “Gotta go with your gut! If you think you know the rocks, then just be careful not to wipe out too many of the memories you think they came from.”

“There’s no way to avoid wiping out a lot of them, but I think if I leave the oldest ones, it’ll be for the best.”

Zack agreed—or couldn’t come up with any better ideas—so Aerith started small, testing Reunion on memories before her passing. A critical memory where she received Diverge that did not dead end; a happy memory sitting on the water tower in Nibelheim, where Cloud’s thoughts lingered on his promise to Tifa well after the rest of the party retired; a comical memory where Cid, through some misunderstanding, forced Cloud and Tifa to share a room at the inn in Rocket Town alone.

With each use, large swaths of threads bound into tightly knit cords, and even more simply ceased to exist. Nothing terrible happened, and Aerith got bolder.

A sentimental memory in Gongaga where Cloud reassured Tifa with a gentle hug; a triumphant memory where Aerith had wagered Tifa one dare on a G-Bike tournament in the Wonder Square at the Gold Saucer, and, having thoroughly creamed her, forced her to ask Cloud on a date.

The planet crooned in pleasure. There was space around Aerith and Zack, and the color of the mako ocean lightened; the waves had calmed.

Costa Del Sol when she focused all her efforts on mastering an All materia so Cloud could buy a private villa. The memory in Wutai when she’d pulled off the most ludicrous shenanigans at the inn, causing Cloud and Tifa to bump into each other in the hot springs.

And then beyond her death, when the stars aligned, and Cloud and Tifa mourned together in the inn at Icicle, a memory she had spied into but hadn’t influenced.

As she reached for a thread housing a beautiful memory centered in Mideel, Zack suddenly caught her by the outline of her hand, “Wait, what’s that?”

Zack directed Aerith’s attention toward the mako ocean. With the density of the mako reduced and the threads choking it diminished, its surface was smooth as a mirror. It was possible to see through the liquid like an impossibly clear green pool. Aerith could see the tiny signature of Sephiroth’s energy in the distance, crouched in a seething mass of spreading black tentacles—a dark lifestream—the malevolent infection of Jenova. But, vast as Jenova was, and far as her influence had spread, it wasn’t the view of her ghastly bulk that drew Zack’s attention; it was what she was doing. Where her repulsive limbs snaked up into the ocean, they grasped the memory threads within her reach, stroking them with grotesque sensuality—bending, warping, and folding them into orifices on her oily surface, and then pulling from within her mass countless duplicates of the threads—multiple copies at a time at alarming speed. Like some nightmarish spider with hundreds of legs and spinnerets casting endless webs of regurgitated memory.

Aerith turned into Zack, burying her face at his breast, thinking she might be ill at what she had seen—forgetting that it wasn’t even possible in her incorporeal form. He stroked her back, trying to look anywhere but at the hideous view through the mako. “Well, I guess at least now we know exactly how Sephiroth is creating more memory threads so fast. I thought it was because he was so careless. I’m sorry, Angel. I never saw  _ that  _ before when I spied on him.”

“Jenova’s influence has grown while you’ve been resting and while I’ve been busy. I’m sure Sephiroth avoided leading you to her when he sensed your presence nearby.”

“Hey. Hey! I think I see something else,” Zack’s tone was excited. He motioned away from where Jenova was nested, toward the horizon. In the near distance, Aerith could see green sparks of light like a tiny sparkler. She immediately recognized it. “That’s the current thread—the connection to the surface. That’s the planet’s memory forged in the present!” Aerith felt elated to see it; if it was visible again, that meant that it had been excavated from beneath eons of unwritten memory threads by Reunion. Her idea was working.

She paused and looked at the sparkling end curiously for a long moment, then drew Zack closer, gathering speed as she rushed to it. “This can’t possibly be,” she breathed near a whisper in disbelief. As she approached she slowed and watched the sputtering thread with intense focus.

It wasn’t moving.

“It’s...stopped,” she said aloud in shock, staring agape at the thread. It was unthinkable. She hadn’t seen the thread in an unconscionable amount of time; but then, she hadn’t looked for it, given all she had to do in so many alternate memories. But if she knew one thing about it, it never stopped. Never. Unless...

“What does it mean if it’s stopped? Why is it—” Zack started, but he was interrupted as something like a cry escaped Aerith.

Unable to truly weep here, she could only exclaim her agony in gasping sobs, “This means, the cycle is stopped. That’s all it can mean. T...The only new memory being forged is me and him—and  _ her. _ Only memories. The planet—the cycle—is dead.  _ They’re all dead. _ ”

Horror washed over Aerith in chills. She had always presumed that the planet’s natural forging went on somewhere buried in all the tangles of Sephiroth’s memory threads. Suddenly all her loved ones weren’t passed on and proceeding in the natural cycle—they were just  _ gone _ —reanimated in brief glimpses of memory resurrected by her will—or  _ theirs. _

Zack looked helplessly between her and the thread. “That can’t be right. Don’t give up hope. Its little flame is still lit, and the planet is still alive. We can hear it, can’t we?”

Aeirth didn’t answer, she only wept in tearless defeat.  _ He’s won. _

“Shh shh,” Zack soothed, gathering her in his arms, “Don’t give up. We can’t give up. There has to be a way to make this right.”

“But I don’t know how! I don’t know what to do. I’ve never known what to do this whole time. I can hardly even remember why I started. I only remember Sephiroth’s goal, and I still don’t know what mine should be. Now,” she flung a hand at the sputtering thread, “I don’t know if it even matters anymore.”

“Don’t say that! Of course it matters!”

“Does it? I lost this thread following innumerable others. It didn’t seem important, and now it’s the most important thing of all, and I don’t even know what happened to it.”

“This isn’t your fault. You can only do as much as you can do. It’s okay not to be perfect, but it’s not okay to give up.”

“Why not? Why can’t I give up? Because I can remember something else now,” she sobbed harder, “I remember why Cloud isn’t here.”

Zack’s energy paled and stilled, “...What?”

“I feel like my memory has cleared. I feel like there’s less to remember now. I remember the end of the longest thread. I remember when he was here with us... The last time. He was so tired.”

Zack looked uncomfortable at the tension in her voice, “I still...can’t remember what happened.”

  
“He’s _gone,_ Zack He went on so long in life without Tifa, he chose to return to the planet with her. He faded to be with her. He’s _gone._ And now _I’m_ tired.”

...he whispers in the language of flowers...he fights, a memory crystallized...he lingers where his thoughts always lingered...a cliff...a tower...a pool...for all time...

Zack hung his head, the suggestion of his fists balling and clenching, “It doesn’t matter if Cloud returned to the planet. That just means he’s in here. He’s part of all of this. They all are. And if the planet can’t go on, maybe it’s because that  _ thing, _ ” he stabbed a finger in the direction of Jenova, “is using all the energy there is to crank out bullshit. You can’t get sad. You’ve got to get mad.”

Aerith only hung limply in defeat, unable to look at him.

“Aerith,” Zack rumbled gently, unusual seriousness in his tone, as he lifted the outline of her face to catch her eyes, “If our places were traded, would Cloud or Tifa—or any of the others ever give up on us? Would they let the planet stop with us trapped in it? Nothing but memories?”

It took her a long moment to respond as she tried to gather her composure, “No,” she brought her hands together and laced her fingers in prayer, shivering with anxious energy, “Never. They never did, even after we were long gone. Cloud would never rest until—”

Zack nodded, “...Until he made it here, huh? Until he knew we were okay. And  _ we _ won’t either. ...Right?”

Aerith stared at the sparkling end of the present, long and hard. She pulled back from Zack, suddenly seizing the fizzing thread, and rushed back to the memory thread she had been about to fuse with Reunion. Her eyes glittered with tears that could never be shed, and she choked with inexpressible emotion. With a forceful shout, she willed the beautiful thread she had selected earlier into truth—the one where Tifa guided Cloud through his shattered memories, and finally realized he loved her just as much as she loved him.

“That’s my girl,” Zack cheered with pride.

The thread of the present flickered, and Jenova wailed in the far distance. Aerith turned to look back at where the abomination lay, and saw  _ him _ looking back at her. Even at impossible distance, she could see the blazing fury in his eyes, the set of his shoulders—poised to pounce.

He knew.

...You dare wield my puppet...you dare wield my own memory...


	15. Sealed Up Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud and Tifa recover from a dip in the lifestream. Somehow no one died while Cid was in charge.

**Sealed Up Secrets**

**_People have so many things pent up inside of themselves...And they can forget so many things...  
— T. Lockhart_ **

_“...Strange...isn't it...”_

Tifa sat up suddenly—her forehead colliding with the underside of the small in-built personnel bunk above hers, “Ouch.” She placed an ungloved hand up to her forehead, and held the delicate spot, feeling it warm. “That’ll be a bump,” she mumbled. She lay her head back down on the thin pillow beneath her with a groan and took a moment to orient herself. She was somewhere in the belly of the Highwind—the privacy curtain of her sleeping space was drawn closed, but she could feel the gentle motions of air flight, the constant vibration and distant hum of the mako engines. The room beyond her curtain was dark. It might be evening, but she had no sense of time. She was certain she knew where she was, she just had no idea how she’d come to be there.

Her clothes were gone. She was clean and dry, wrapped in a simple cotton robe under thin blankets. Blearily she tried to recall what had happened. The last thing she could remember was preparing lunch in the clinic. Cid shouting her name—and Cloud... _Cloud._ An intense stream of memories came to her all at once in a jarring flash.

“Cloud?!” Tifa cried, and cast about in panic, trying to find the edge of the curtain to pull it aside, but waves of mako exposure induced dizziness washed over her, making her vision blur. Was Cloud alright? Had he survived the swim to the surface out of the mako swell? Had he fallen unconscious from over exposure? She couldn’t bear to lose him after she had just finally, _finally,_ found him again. “Cloud!”

She startled back from the edge of her cot as the privacy curtain suddenly hissed open by itself next to her face. Blonde spiky hair hung below sharp blazing blue eyes peering anxiously at her from the bunk above, spilling gentle light across her in the small alcove. “Tifa? ...I’m here.”

She gaped at the top half of his face upside-down for a long moment in wonder as her vision stopped spinning. He was _conscious._ He _spoke_ to her. _"Cloud!"_ She cried again, her voice cracking. Her eyes filled with unbidden tears, and suddenly she was sobbing uncontrollably, hands over her eyes.

Cloud’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. He withdrew back to the bunk above and then a soft thump sounded as he dropped on bare feet to the floor. “Tifa?” He brushed the curtain aside, absorbed in worry for her. “Are you okay?” He asked, stooping so he could lean into the small bunk over her. “Are you hurt? Let me see.” He was dressed in a similar cotton robe, his bare hands finding hers to pull them away from her face so he could examine the small raised bump on her head. He gently brushed a thumb over it, as she stared at him through streaming eyes like she’d seen a ghost. “Please don’t let this all be a dream,” she sobbed, suddenly latching onto him with powerful arms around the middle, upsetting his balance.

He promptly pitched forward and crashed into the bunk atop her. “Tifa!” He caught himself, hands on either side of her shoulders, looking at her with bewildered surprise. But she just continued to hold him under his arms, eyes squeezed shut, her sobs slowly quieting as she satisfied herself that he was real with her face buried in his chest. The tension in his shoulders loosened, and he carefully lowered himself to her side. “It’s okay, Tifa. I’m here.”

“It’s _really_ you,” she sniffled, her voice betraying disbelief and awe.

He nodded, a shameful and apologetic look in his downcast eyes, “Just...me. I’m sorry...for everything.”

“No! No, don’t apologize. You’re perfect. It’s _you!_ ” She cried through a small laugh, meeting his eyes with warmth and tearful joy, before redoubling her hold on him and nuzzling into his chest. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”

He looked confused as her arms tightened around him again, pulling his body down flush against the side of hers. His eyes grew wider with fear as pressure, friction, and proximity suddenly elicited new unwanted reactions from his body, and he scrambled slightly trying to distance his hips from her. But she only hooked a powerful leg out from under the thin blankets and wrapped it around his waist to hold him closer. He grit his teeth trying to will himself to be calm. If she noticed anything besides the bunched blankets between them, she didn’t let on. “It wasn’t...I didn’t imagine all of that before, did I? In the lifestream...”

He relaxed ever so slightly, “No...”

She pulled back and looked up at him, an earnest expression in her jewel-tone eyes reflecting the light back from his own. She needed him to know her truth, “Cloud, I searched for you. In all the papers. I worked at the bar in the inn and asked every Shinra employee about you. I became the best trail guide so I could talk to the reactor employees. I asked every tourist from Midgar... about _you._ And when I ended up there myself, I never stopped looking...”

He grunted, a small self-deprecating laugh, “Well, now you know why no one knew me.”

“I wasn’t looking for a SOLDIER. I was looking for _you._ Please… _please_ don’t ever leave again,” she pled, her voice shaking with emotion.

His eyes grew in shock, caught off guard by her confession, casting a glow as gentle as starlight that filled the tiny space hardly big enough for one...let alone two. “I won’t...unless it’ll hurt you if I don’t.” Slowly, as though he might scare her away or break the spell of this moment, he lifted his hand back to the side of her face, and brushed away what remained of her tears. “I promise.” He let his hand rest cradling her face, much as he had years ago in another era of his life.

...I failed you so many times, and you still loved me...

He felt her shift suddenly below him, her eyes closed, her arms coming up around his neck and drawing him closer. Soft warm lips crashed clumsily against his, filling his senses with toasted vanilla in her hair, cinnamon and clove on her breath. She was— _kissing_ him. His back stiffened straight as a rod; he didn’t know where his hands were supposed to be or what his lips were supposed to do. All he knew about kissing and lovemaking was learned from crude banter and lewd videos shared in barracks. He was kissing _Tifa Lockhart_ for the first time, and it was supposed to be _perfect._ He could never hope to make it good enough for what she deserved, but...this felt disarmingly nice...Tentatively, _so carefully,_ he relaxed and tried to return her kiss, hoping that if it wasn’t great for her, at least it wouldn’t be painful.

She broke away, and asked in a hushed breathy voice, “I’m sorry...I just...is this okay?”

...anything for another moment...

“Yes,” he whispered, running his hand along her jaw behind her head, his fingers threading in the hair at the nape of her neck. He pulled her infinitesimally closer, and pressed his lips to hers again with painstaking care. She closed her eyes and, to his wonder, melted into his kiss, just slightly parting her lips and breathing him in. And he followed, instinct guiding him to deepen the kiss, pressing further, his tongue just skirting her bottom lip experimentally.

She lazily lifted her hand from his shoulder and pulled the privacy curtain closed, and then rested her head back on the pillow, pulling him down with her. He shifted slightly, centering himself over her, and settling between her legs, his arm twisting behind her to cradle her head on his forearm where he rested his weight. She replaced her hand behind his head, digging her fingers into his soft hair to encourage him, a small moan of pleasure escaping her into his mouth as he shyly pressed his tongue beyond the seam of her lips to taste her.

...If everything's a dream...don't wake me...

Cloud had never heard such a pretty sound in all of his life. All he wanted to do was make Tifa sigh like that again—over and over. Louder. Harder. Unfortunately, the next sound he heard was a door opening in the room beyond the privacy curtain. He immediately pulled back, sharing a panicked look with Tifa. Her hands flew from around him to cover her mouth, eyes staring at the curtain in horror.

Some dim lighting flicked on and heavy footsteps in the room made their way beside the bunks. The sound of the privacy curtain to the bunk above being slid open could be heard over their hushed breaths.

“The hell?!” Barret exclaimed just over a whisper, trying to keep his voice low so as not to disturb Tifa. Footsteps sounded again, moving further into the room, “You in here somewhere, Spiky? ...Maybe woke up an’ went to the bathroom...”

Barret walked back beside the bunks and crouched down, carefully pulling Tifa’s privacy curtain open a few inches. She appeared to be sleeping soundly, facing the wall. “Poor girl. You been through so much. ‘Bout damn time you get a good rest.” He gently stroked her hair, and tugged her blankets up a little higher with unmistakably fatherly affection. “Guess if Cloud’s up ‘round here somewhere, I’ll find ‘im and tell ‘im it’s his turn to take care o’ _you_ for a change.” He gave her a squeeze on the shoulder, and then pulled the curtain closed again.

As Barret’s footsteps receded out of the room and the door closed, Cloud fell in a heap from where he was contorted and flattened against the bunk wall near Tifa’s feet. She rolled onto her back, resting on her elbows to look at him, and broke into the infectious laugh that Cloud could never help but smile at.

“Guess I better go. Got enough explaining to do already,” he said through a smirk.

Tifa nodded. “Yeah, alright. I’ll be right behind you.”

He started to right himself, and slid his legs out from under the privacy curtain to leave, but she caught him by a hand.

“Tifa?”

She smiled warmly at him, “It’s just...so good to have you back, Cloud.”

***

“I got two Times and a Destruct here,” Cid groused, leaned over a box overflowing with glowing orbs of materia. He pushed his goggles aside and scratched at his scalp, with his other hand on his hip, “Er...I think.”

“I have Destruct equipped. That is a Restore,” deadpanned Vincent, arms folded, leaning ever so slightly against the meeting table in the center of the Operation room.

“Huh! I guess you’re right. What’s this yellow one do? ...Why’d I put this here again?”

Red, sitting beside Vincent on the floor behind Cid, looked up at Vincent with significant concern. Vincent didn’t return the look but he shook his head ever so subtly, sharp eyes watching as Cid rummaged in the box, causing several materia to spill to the floor and roll under nearby furnishings.

Yuffie, sitting on a crate beside the box of materia, moaned in torment, “Can I _please_ go yet? I need fresh air or I’m going to blow chunks—” She suddenly sat up straighter, leaning forward on the crate to peer beyond Cid at the door at the end of the room. “Cloud!”

Cloud stood in a thin cotton robe looking curiously into the room where the small gathering of companions were trying to sort out their materia builds before they arrived in Junon. “Hey, uh...anyone seen my clothes?”

Red’s concerned expression broke in surprise and he bounded to Cloud like an excited puppy, tail whipping and lashing in delight as he turned a joyful circle at his feet, “You’re awake! I’m so glad you’re back, Cloud!”

“Ah, thank Odin,” grunted Cid slamming the box closed and resting an elbow on it. He turned to smile at Cloud, cigarette clenched in his teeth, “I was probably gonna kill someone trying to work out these materia builds. I’ll stick to flight command instead of this tactical military bullshit.”

Vincent, arms still folded leaning against the table, gave Cloud a small nod in greeting, “I believe you’ll find your clothes drying in the scullery. They were saturated in mako.”

“Yeah we hadda strip em off ya so we could give ya a bath,” cackled Yuffie with perverse pleasure before doubling over to gag.

Vincent cleared his throat, “Yuffie assisted Tifa. Barret and I saw to your needs.”

Cloud nodded, grateful for Vincent’s clarification, “Need to gather everyone for a meeting once Tifa is awake. I need to know what I missed, and—” he looked down at his feet, “I have a lot to apologize for.”

Red stepped closer and filled his vision, looking up at him affectionately, “I’ll tell the others. Everything is going to be better now that you’re back.” He trotted out of the room toward the Bridge to tell Cait Sith the news.

“...Maybe...Sorry, but you may change your mind once you hear what I have to say.”

Cid grunted, “Kid, I dunno what revelation you think you’re gonna give us, but the pup is right. Leading this business is a shitshow, and from what I’ve seen, you’re the best for the job.”

“I’m not who you think…”

“I was in the damn crater. I saw it all. Lotta crazy shit went on back there, but one thing I know, ‘fake it till ya make it,’ only works when ya got some natural skill at what yer fakin'. Now go get some fuckin' pants on. Captain’s orders.”

Cid strolled out of the room with his hands deep in his pockets, following Red in the direction of the Bridge. Yuffie chased after Cid, giving Cloud a bolstering slap in the back as she passed, fleeing for fresh air on the observation deck.

Cloud’s eyes met Vincent’s. The ex-Turk stood up straight from the table and strode out the door after the others, but he stopped just behind Cloud, “Sin is a heavy burden. Don’t exaggerate its weight unnecessarily.” He didn’t wait for a reply as he proceeded toward the Bridge, the sharp metallic tap of his boots echoing off the walls in the Machine room as he departed.

Cloud stared into the Operation room for a long moment, thinking about what the others had said and what Tifa had done. The current status of the airship and its destination, speed, and estimated time of arrival blinked away the seconds on the display screen at the head of the room. Junon, eight hours until arrival.

There was so much to do. So much to say. Cloud turned from the room, trying to process all that had happened in the last hour, and went to find his pants—and more importantly, his sword.


	16. Lop-Winged Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth has serious mommy issues. I promise he hasn't just been faffing around this whole time.

**Lop-Winged Angel**

**_It seems to me, that love could be labeled poison, and we’d drink it anyways.  
— atticus_ **

Being the only embraced childe and progeny of the planet’s—no, the universe’s—rightful ruler was intoxicating, but Mother was a demanding and duplicitous Goddess to serve.

Sephiroth had done everything in his power for countless lifetimes—eons of lived experience—to bring this planet, Gaia, in hand so he could sail it to the next star at her whim. With every effort—every lifetime relived in Gaia’s repulsive cycle—failure dogged him and delayed their departure, the fault of that accursed half-Ancient spawn and his own miserable defective puppet.

...what virus loves its vaccine? ...

_ Cloud, _ Hojo’s laughable attempt to clone him. Mother had shown Sephiroth how to pull the strings of her genetic puppets. All creatures blessed to hold her cells for a short lifetime easily caved before his influence, but this—this backwater boy-soldier, so susceptible to mako, had been made with a willpower forged of mythril. Cloud was hard to bend, harder to kill, and had dragged Sephiroth’s consciousness through more than one intolerably prolonged and humiliating defeat.

It mattered little to Mother. Mother had shown Sephiroth how to tap Gaia; how to see the incalculable potential of her memory; how to divert the energy of her cycle; how to test the limitless possibilities of time-made-tangible-fluid to accomplish their glorious and rightful interstellar conquest.

Time meant  _ nothing _ to the immortal.

All that had meaning was the objective:  _ seduce, spread, conquer, rule.  _ He would succeed in time, a great cosmic predator toying with Gaia’s forgettable vermin.

When Mother was right, and well, and happy, her  [ singing was so indescribably beautiful. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvFH4JKQfnQ) His ears filled with  [ euphoric choirs of distant stellar angels ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtqxSvomGnE) brought to heel. All the vast echoing voices of the universe’s humbled galaxies praised the righteousness of their ascension. Mother was happy whole. Mother was happy growing and spreading.

_ Seduce, spread, conquer, rule. _

_ Seduce, spread, conquer, rule. _

Sephiroth knew the objective was his life’s meaning, his opus. It had crystalized for him in his epiphany—his vision. Madness, Zack had called it. _ “They’ll test you for FI,” _ he’d said in the bowels of Reactor One. Fool. 

...what man dreams of being a virus? ...

_ Zack, _ another of Hojo’s failed attempts to replicate deity. Zack was inferior in every way, even to Cloud. Such a meager intellect could never have understood. 

There among the reactor’s failed experiments, Sephiroth had quite suddenly realized himself to be something more than human. He had never belonged among Gaia’s blood-sodden soil children. For a week after the discovery, he never slept. It was the longest he’d ever gone without rest, and he spent that time devouring the knowledge that Shina’s science division had gathered in the laboratory beneath the mansion. As he pieced together the truth of his heritage, he realized he was something greater—no human scaffolding could  _ ever _ be resculpted in his image. 

But when at last his body had joined with the cells of Mother’s crown in the lifestream; the harmony of her beautiful song had … altered. And it had altered even further when he had recovered the whole of her body from Shinra. Her singular focus changed a little more with each reunion; her cells sang a new dirge. Sephiroth could do little but endure the torment that came with her new-forming objective, and his senses were constantly and almost completely overwhelmed.  _ Bend, warp, fold, duplicate. _

_ Bend, warp, fold, duplicate. _

_ Bend, warp, fold, duplicate! _

Mother’s distributed immortal cells returned to her, slowly trickling into the pores of the planet through geologic time as their hosts perished. The song of her new objective grew stronger with every subsequent reunion, until it was all that she cried, day and night, in an insatiable wail. Her song had become less like a hymn—more like an  [ endless scream. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uVJMe_8Wsg) She shrieked demands, orders, entreaties—and nothing could ever satisfy her.

Now immortal time meant  _ everything. _

And still he worked to sate her every whim, even when she had turned her cruel gaze on the threads of his longest and most degrading defeats, and started to duplicate them in earnest. A crushing, agonizing, lingering defeat became a billion such defeats in the bat of an eye.

_ That _ was true madness.

Still she would not look away—exacting the torment intended for a million abandoned target galaxies on his beleaguered consciousness.

He could no longer hear the stellar choirs—the angels had turned away from his mother and him long ago. The memory of the pleasure of their song was a bitter barb in the meaningless torment that was now his existence.

_ Bring Mother new memories to warp and duplicate. Bring Mother all of knowable time. _

Mother still promised the universe, but he wondered if it was as remote and insubstantial as the Promised Land of the Ancients. He stifled his doubt and forged new memory lines to feed her desire, a mutinous voice whispering in the back of his mind that perhaps one of these paths might lead to victory, or, even better, to oblivion.

Everything was agony, every effort was a chore; and Mother interfered even when his efforts were intended to serve her needs. He dove into diverging memories, only for Mother to regurgitate crossing threads in his path, splitting his focus nearly every step of his journey. Sometimes he felt he viewed memory through the humble compound eye of an insect, countless views of the same memories, only slightly altered, splayed through his mind over and over...so painfully.

If he could only clear his head for a moment and  _ think. _ Sometimes he strayed from Mother’s side seeking peace, but the screaming inside his mind never paused. Even in revisited life, he never slept. He knew vaguely, when at last he had collected the hot leavings of his principal puppet’s memory, that he might have all the requirements to finally put his torment at an end. But Mother would never let him rest; her demand for new memory consumed his every effort. He couldn’t formulate a plan, and only paused in his work when the meddling of the half-Ancient demanded it.

_ Bring Mother more memory. Bring Mother new memory, long and fresh. BE QUICK! _

Every time the half-Ancient insisted on toying with the threads of his greatest defeats, Mother demanded to revisit them, compounding his torture exponentially. And so he deemed it necessary to drive Aerith away. Unfortunately, she was nearly as stubborn as Cloud.

_ Bring Mother new memories! Bring Mother more time! Bend, warp, fold, duplicate! _

Sephiroth tore into memory viciously, rending cruel revisions in history crafted to torment and haunt his adversaries. He revisited the cargo ship, and whispered loathsome insinuations to Mother’s thoughts regarding the barmaid and her influence over their puppet. He staked the Ancient to the water temple dais with Masamune like a nectarfly pinned under glass for all eternity, and still she persisted.

_ Mother starves! How shall you travel the stars without the sails of my good humor? Exalted foundling. Precious cinder of perfect creation. Bend, warp fold, duplicate. _

He strode toward the shore with purpose, spying Hojo at his womanizing on the beach at Costa Del Sol. Even as he prepared to pounce having noted the approach of the puppet, his perception suddenly scattered in a thousand broken shards.

_ Hojo! Humble soil from whence issued the spark of divinity. AVATAR! Mother remembers. _

Sepriroth’s fragmented mind’s eye alighted across a dozen memories vomited into his subconscious by Mother. They were not his own. They belonged to the old man. The Turk who slept in endless terrorized torpor.

_ A nightmare fit for famine. BRING MOTHER MEMORIES! _

Remembering second-hand memories was nearly as great a feat as creating illusions which allowed one to appear within them. Trying to maintain focus in the present memory while viewing some twelve different versions of another's memory was instantaneous soul-ripping agony. Sephiroth seized and fell hobbled in the ocean, buffeted by waves, unable to proceed.

“What is this, Mother? Why now? I need to...”

_ HOJO! Look upon how Mother has elevated you. Repent for your negligence. _

Twelve different times, twelve different ways, Sephiroth watched as a comely scientist rejected the old man in favor of Hojo. And that scientist named her son, the son of Hojo—

“It...can’t...be...”

_ AVATAR! SON OF SOIL! BRING MOTHER TIME! _

Reeling from split focus, suffering, and further psychological damage, Sepiroth tried to turn back to his purpose as Mother commanded. It couldn’t be real. He could not be human. The son of that inferior scientist and that monster in a lab coat who walked all the halls of his childhood inflicting on him—

**_BRING MOTHER TIME!_ **

Mother expelled the same memory a hundred more times, inundating him in a wash of threads more unimaginably painful than he could have ever dreamed. This truth was more degrading than failure.

Suddenly the present seared hot as coal, asserting itself as foremost in his current discomforts, and he caught a distant cry perceived—not heard.

He tore his consciousness from all of memory, and witnessed what the half-Ancient was doing. In the distance, beyond the mako ocean, she was using the puppet’s memory to destroy much of his work and solidify some of his least-favorite outcomes.

His energy crackled with rage. This never would have happened if he could only focus, plan,  _ think. _ He never would have been so careless as to use Reunion where the pole-tart’s cooling corpse could see—he’d just been so furious—his vision so divided.

_ MOTHER SHALL REND YOU. MOTHER SHALL SEVER YOU FROM GLORY AND ELEVATE ANOTHER. MOTHER SHALL SELECT A NEW SCION, STRONGER, SWIFTER. MOTHER SHALL WEAR THE MONK AND SEDUCE THE BOY. _

But the humbling memories, screams, and threats did not induce her stubborn, damaged childe to execute her desires. So Jenova shifted beneath him, stroking the hideous form of his energy with oily tentacles of negative lifestream.  _ Disgusting. Wretched. Gaian soil whelp. _

She coaxed and cajoled, more gently and seductively than before.

_ Beautiful prince of broken stars, chosen kin of deity, gift of Gaia. Mother loves you. Only you are destined to inherit the universe. ...Bring Mother time. _

Sephiroth turned his radiant green eyes from the view of the half-Ancient in the distance to look up at his Mother, and fell bitterly against his hateful yoke—

—and smiled.

...what hopeless mortal could ever aspire to deity? ...


	17. Every Minute, Every Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith visits the distant future. Cloud and Vincent have an unpleasant assignment.

**Every Minute, Every Moment**

**_Quiet people have the loudest minds.  
— S. Hawking_ **

Cloud roused at the sound of the sandy soil of the wasteland being ground under shifting boots. 

Vincent had been still for most of the hours of the day, as they both drifted through the mako induced memories that occupied their minds. Regretless dreams of the distant past spent with their family, alternate lives, possible futures, and all manor of indecipherable snippets of other existences that would run in their blood until the days they died.

They were the last of their kind, with few obligations. Humanity had succumbed slowly over the ages to natural shifts in the planet’s climate. Life still persisted, but, as was natural in the eons of her cycle, one form of life gave way to the dominance of another, as Gaia changed her gown from verdant greens and blues to duns and rusts.

They sat on what would have been a scenic overlook—were it not for the dusty cracked earth, howling winds, and unbearable searing heat. In the distance the wreckage of Edge slowly disintegrated and, beyond it, the fallen-down mountain, which was all that remained of Midgar. 

Their nomadic travels always brought them to meditate in this spot for a few weeks out of the year in companionable silence among the last overgrown patch of scrub daisies—the last miracle. This small, wilting patch of flowers was their final connection to their departed companions—recurring annually to remind them they weren’t alone. Aerith sent gentle morning rains every June to coax the yellow flowers to join them for a brief August bloom, the last image of a long-dead world. Endangered species, just like them. They never missed the bloom.

Vincent abruptly shifted, the sound of him gaining his feet. Cloud was instantly on alert. Some hearty monsters still scavenged the wastes, eking out a harsh existence. Mean and dogged natures made them willing to attack anything that might be remotely edible, including the last of humanity’s manufactured demigods.

Cloud was on his feet with a hand at a sword hilt in less than the blink of an eye, following Vincent’s eyeline to seek the danger that approached. But the sight that greeted him left him staggered. It could only be a mirage.

A figure approached from the ruins of Edge on the last crumbling remains of the highway. Even at distance, swept by the harsh dust of the wastes, the apparition carved a female silhouette, clothed in shades of petal pink and rosy red as long-extinct as the natural pigment sources that had been used to make them. Brown ringlets of hair fluttered around a delicate face that he would know anywhere. Anytime.

“Aerith!” Cloud cried, and immediately made to advance forward, but Vincent flung a cloaked arm out to stop him. “An illusion. We must approach with caution.”

Cloud looked again, and just as Vincent said, there was something other-worldly about Aerith as she neared—her lively green eyes strangely dull, her skin tone flat. She cast no shadow as she came to a stop a hundred odd meters away, and offered a friendly wave.

“Heya,” carried on the wind to their ears.

Cloud started forward again, grabbing onto Vincent’s forearm to haul him along as well.

“It could be created by Seph—”

“I don’t care,” growled Cloud, pulling his reluctant companion to close the distance between them and the ghost that haunted many of their waking dreams.

At last they stood only a few paces apart, and Cloud simply stared at Aerith. She was completely unchanged since he had last seen her in the church. Compared to him, in his dusty fading travel leathers, and Vincent, in his vermillion cloak that seemed to live an undead existence of its own, she looked radiant. “H—how are you doing this?”

Aerith placed a finger to her lips, “It’s a little secret.” Something in her eyes seemed grave and sad, even as she giggled the mischievous laugh that he remembered from ages in the past. “I’ve come because I need your help.” She looked down at the dusty soil at her feet and toed at the ground, “I’m afraid it’s not really a fun request.”

Cloud caught Vincent’s flashing red eyes for a moment before replying, “You’d be surprised what counts as fun around here now-a-days.”

“Hmm,” she wordlessly agreed, looking around at the lonely world they inhabited. “I still wish there were any other way.” She skipped around behind them, dancing in small circles as she had dodged attacks in their travels, “Let’s go look at the flowers! I want to see how they are.”

Once Cloud might have rolled his eyes at such a waste of time; but everything about this, a new memory, was precious. He nodded at Vincent, and they made their way back to their meager camp to stand within the small patch of scrub daisies.

As Aerith bent to tend the flowers with gentle care, Cloud and Vincent stood by and watched, helplessly arrested by the nostalgic sight of another human doing something so mundane.

“Tell us how we can help,” stated Vincent simply, apparently won over, or at least convinced that Sephiroth would never willingly tend flowers even for the sake of manipulation.

Aerith laughed, “In truth, all I need is your long memories. I need you to remember this visit. As often, constantly, and hard as you can. For the rest of your natural lives.”

Cloud and Vincent exchanged another glance. “Why?”

“There’s so much I wish I could tell you. So much has happened. Things you’d never believe even if I showed you. The lifestream and the lifecycle of the planet don’t work exactly as the planetologists theorized. There’s more to it.” She turned as her hands continued to work, looking at each of them for a long moment, “I came because I hope by now you have realized that this isn’t the only lifetime you’ve ever lived.”

Vincent nodded slowly at Cloud’s side, “The nightmares. They started after the mako.”

Aerith nodded. “Feels a bit like deja vu sometimes, huh? They’re real. Maybe, not all real to this lifetime, but real nonetheless. Mako is ancient, condensed memory, and you were both heavily overexposed by Hojo.”

Cloud blinked at the realization. Some part of him had always suspected the flashes he experienced were more than just hallucinations invented by his Jenova-addled mind. Some seemed so real and familiar.

“So how can our memories help? Speak plainly,” Vincent rumbled.

Aerith stood and dusted her skirt off with her hands. “Right now, as we speak, we are forging an offshoot of an existing strand of lifestream memory. I already know how that memory ends. I came here to divert it on a different path. In my present, Sephiroth is doing the same as I am now—diverging memories with the assistance of Jenova—diverting all of Gaia’s energy. Jenova poisoned the lifestream with corrupted memories—folding, warping, repeating over and over—driving Sephiroth mad. He’s not trying to control the planet anymore. He’s trying to destroy it.”

Vincent blinked unaffected, but Cloud clenched a fist and grit his teeth. He had assumed that given the time passed without Sephiroth’s reemergence that he was gone and defeated for good. “What?!”

“It’s hard to explain, but Sephiroth  _ is _ gone from this world—this memory. All that remains of him is held captive in you, Cloud. It infuriates him, and drives him mad when multiple lifetimes like this reoccur.”

“Interesting,” mused Vincent.

“How can memories help?! There has to be a way to fight him,” argued Cloud, palming the hilt of one of his swords, ready to spring to the planet’s defense again.

...Tifa’s in there...

“It’s not that easy. Sephiroth is dead. If you were to go to the lifestream, you would be too. You can’t kill what’s already returned to the planet.”

Cloud’s eyes fell to the ground between them.

“But...“ Aerith turned back to the flowers to continue tending them, “What if you remember that for ages? What if those memories condense to mako? And in another lifetime, sometime in your past, you wake and remember? What if you could stop Sephiroth before all of this began?”

“Dwell on terrifying memories for a span to weave nightmares. But if there are many lifetimes as you say, how would one among many make a difference?” Vincent asked.

“I can solidify a chosen memory and collapse the rest.”

“Paradox,” Vincent assessed plainly, "This 'memory' would cease to exist."

Aerith didn’t respond except for a small nod of her head.

“What happens if we cause a paradox?” Cloud asked, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

Aerith picked a dead spray of flowers off of a wilting plant, “I hope that the cycle will restart, but … I don’t actually know what will happen. The cycle is stopped. Whatever relief I can bring it, it is only a matter of time until the planet dies. And everyone we care for with it.” She turned and looked at them, “I’ve hunted for any alternative, but I can’t find a way to restart the cycle, except to stop Sephiroth from ever stopping it.”

...I promised...

She worked quietly for a time, giving them a few moments to process what she had said.

“When would we have to act?” asked Vincent.

Aerith bowed her head and folded her hands in apparent prayer, looking far into many deep pasts with Diverge. "Approximately September 22, 2002, give or take a few days, the night that Sephiroth went mad, before he was killed at the reactor."

Cloud shook his head, “I won’t be able to help. I was just an ordinary grunt. I wasn’t infused with mako until after the burning of Nibelheim."

“I think...you already have helped,” Aerith said reassuringly to Cloud, “I have a theory that your long memory in the mako condensed into the materia that solidifies the memory lines. The materia will let me solidify the memory that Vincent must forge.”

Vincent’s eyes gleamed, “I see. I was in the mansion that night. I remember the nightmares.”

Aerith looked deeply pained, “Yes...and...I’m so, so sorry,” tears were welling in her curiously dull eyes, “but there’s more I have to ask you to endure...”

Aerith looked apologetically at Vincent, “The nightmares will grow stronger when I entice Jenova to duplicate this memory. I fear that it will be difficult to kill Sephiroth. You’ll have to find some means to disable him. But...I don’t think that will be the biggest challenge.”

“The nightmares...” whispered Vincent.

Cloud felt a strange chill climb his spine, “What do you mean?”

“Cloud and Zack will defend Sephiroth against Vincent’s assassination attempt. They may attempt to kill you.”

“No!” Protested Cloud, looking between Aerith and Vincent, “I couldn’t. We’re friends!  _ Family! _ There has to...You said you’ve used a materia from my memory! Just...kill me before we reach Nibelheim and cause the paradox. I volunteer myself.”

Aerith shook her head, but curiously her tears never fell.

“No,” said Vincent flatly, “I will not.”

Cloud looked long and hard at Vincent. They had been each other’s sole companion for unthinkable spans of time. For much of Cloud’s life, he had considered Vincent one of his closest friends in the world, even before he was the only choice. Quiet, enigmatic, thoughtful, and always dependable. Cloud knew Vincent would make the most prudent choice in any situation, even if it was a hard one. Aside from Tifa, there was no one else he could imagine facing down the apocalypse at his side. It was unthinkable that in some short sniff of a lifetime he might betray this man he had come to love as a brother. He supposed the sentiment must actually be mutual, although Vincent never had, and probably never would say more about it than he already had.

A sad, choked laugh escaped Aerith, “I knew you would offer, Cloud, but it’s not an option. If we target you and it doesn’t work, then I will have solidified what was possibly our only shot. It has to be Sephiroth.”

A long silence passed between the three old friends, sand hissing through the daisies on the driving breeze.

“How will you know if we failed?” asked Vincent.

“Oh, I suppose everything will just go on as it is.”

“And if we succeed?”

“I don’t know what will happen. Everything might end, or the cycle might restart. Who can say?”

“I accept.” Vincent said at last.

Aerith nodded a pained acknowledgement, even as Cloud started to stammer a protest. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon, kicking up a deep red dusk through the distant sand storms of the waste.

“It’s almost evening. Time to go...” Aerith started to fade in vapor trails and rising embers of green fire.

“Wait!” Cloud shouted, making a swipe for her wrist, only to come up empty handed.

...please...tell Tifa I love her...

Aerith only smiled sadly as she had among another patch of flowers far in the past—a distant dream. “Please, remember. Every minute, every moment.” She gave him a fond wink.

Cloud stood back and watched her fade, willing himself not to mourn this parting. He nodded as she rose in insubstantial whisps to the sky, “I promise.”


	18. Sulfur and Solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tifa gets an eye-full and an armload. I want to go to the spa.

**Sulfur and Solace**

**_The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.  
— S. J. Harris_ **

The first frost of the year fell the day after Yuffie ascended the pagoda. Winter’s chill pushed south in the night, blanketing Wutai in a veneer of ice that glittered off of every surface. It was early in the season for the cold snap according to the tender at Turtle’s Paradise, serving breakfast tea to the morning patrons. Children, free from school, tested the thin coat of ice that edged the canals that snaked through town.

Yuffie insisted the light flurry of snowflakes that accompanied the ice storm was the favor of Leviathan, shedding his opalescent scales to herald her victory.

“The timing couldn’t be better!” Yuffie asserted loudly enough for the party to hear in all corners of the Kisaragi family mansion, which doubled as an inn. “It’s best to soak in the onsen when it’s freezing outside! Your skin is going to thank me!” Aerith and Tifa exchanged looks, while Cloud sighed and groaned over a shallow dish of chilled tofu on the kotatsu where they huddled for warmth.

“The bridges in the passes will thaw in a day or two tops, and until then we can relax and enjoy the finest of Wutai’s hospitality!” It was obvious the petite ninja was proud of her country and all that it offered. She wanted to show off to her travel-companions-turned-occasional-victims.

“We’re behind. We wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t stolen our materia. We don’t have time for a holiday weekend, Yuffie.” Cloud grumbled in frustration, “Sephiroth is—”

“It’s practically YOUR fault that Wutai is the tourist trap it is,” Yuffie accused, slapping a hand down on the warm table top, making Cloud’s tofu quake. “You won't even leave my people any spare materia to defend themselves! The least you could do is pretend to enjoy the fruits of your evil labor, SOLDIER!”

_ "Ex _ -SOLDIER.” Cloud snarled, a hint of warning in his voice.

“Doesn’t matter, you—”

“Thief’s right for once, kid,” Cid hollered from behind a thin sliding partition that divided the rooms, interrupting their spat and earning a glare from Yuffie. “Even if we make it over ground, the Bronco ain’t goin anywhere until this clears off.”

Yuffie’s glare shifted to a wicked grin, her assorted baseless accusations toward Cloud forgotten. “See?! We’re trapped here anyway. Unless you wanna try your luck swimming your pale ass to the continent, make yourself comfortable!” 

Cloud scowled and slouched over the kotatsu, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table top. “Whatever.”

“Then it’s settled! I’ll let dad know we’ll be staying in the mansion a few more days.” Cloud tried to correct Yuffie that they would be departing as soon as the ice cleared, but the ninja was gone through a secret wall panel before the first half-formed word left his mouth.

“Great.”

Aerith grinned and leaned toward Tifa to get her attention, “Might as well make the best of it. When’s the next time we’ll be compelled to stay in a royal mansion for a spa weekend with the local princess?”

Tifa giggled, and her eyes sparkled a little at the fairytale description Aeirth conjured, but then she remembered herself. She turned an apologetic smile on their sulking table companion, “I’m sure we won’t be stuck here very long.”

Cloud only responded with a sigh and pushed off the low table with both palms to stand. He slid open a wall panel to the grounds behind the mansion and squinted out into the blinding white of the late-morning sun reflecting off of every surface. The ice was still there. Given the draft that rushed into the room through the panel and the way it made his hot breath rise in vaporous clouds, it wouldn’t be burning off anytime soon either. “Guess I’ll go reslot our materia. Not like that won’t take hours after what Yuffie did.”

“Oh, will you need a hand?” Tifa offered, her brow raising in concern.

As Cloud’s eyes adjusted to the glare, he looked out over the beautiful garden. A gravel path meandered through a henge of large mossy stones surrounded by dwarf trees in deep reds, oranges, and yellows. Immaculately manicured evergreen topiary dotted the bank of a glassy frozen fish pond where the path ended at a small footbridge. On the far side of the bridge, a charming wood-sided bathhouse stood enclosing part of the onsen. In the distance behind the structure, sheltered from view by a thick fence of bamboo, the stone-lined hot spring sent columns of thick sulfur-scented mist into the frigid air, raining its own thin snow. With the accenting sparkles from the frost, it looked like paradise.

Even with the urgency to leave boiling in his blood, Cloud couldn’t bring himself to keep Tifa from enjoying something like that.

“Nah. If you want to help, just keep Yuffie out of my hair.”

Aerith hopped up from where she had been sitting and gave Tifa a hand up to her feet, “Can do! Come on, Tifa, let’s go see the facilities. That’s sure to get Yuffie’s attention.”

As Aerith headed out through the passage into the garden, Tifa stopped beside Cloud and gave him a warm smile, “Don’t work all day, okay? Make sure you take some time to relax, too.”

Cloud gave her a small nod, his eyes softening just a hint. “Lesson one, right? Will do.” Tifa gave him a fond pat on the arm, and followed Aerith out into the chilly morning.

Cid suddenly threw open the sliding divider to the room next door and stomped in, heedless of the delicate tatami mats underfoot. “I’ll give ya a hand with the materia, kid. Can’t be too hard. Got us a whole thermos of tea here from Turtle’s. I’m all fired up!”

Cloud shook his head in dismay, closing the sliding panel to the garden. This was going to take all day.

***

Aerith and Tifa rushed through the biting air of the garden, the stones on the path and mossy ground-cover crunching under their feet equally as they made their way to the bathhouse. Pulling the door open, they were hit with a balmy draft of warm, fragranced air, and Tifa gasped as they stepped inside. 

A long counter stood before them, flanked on either end by curtained doorways. Behind the counter an attendant appeared to be overseeing the checking of towels and management of the bathing facilities. The walls immediately on either side of the door were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelving stocked with luxurious spa and bath products. Body scrubs, creams, oils, cosmetics, candles, and fragrances of all kinds complemented the volcanic note that hung heavy in the humid air of the onsen. 

Aerith squealed with glee and frolicked to the shelves to poke through the products, waving a particularly nice smelling rose and cocoa candle under Tifa’s nose. “I wonder what floral scent would suit you, Tifa.”

Tifa looked on politely with her hands folded in front of herself, “I usually prefer vanilla or jasmine. I wonder what all of this costs.”

“Nothin!” Yuffie chirped, dropping from the exposed rafter beams above to join them, “We keep it stocked to entertain foreign dignitaries and stuff. It’s all complementary. Go nuts.”

Tifa lit up with excitement, and she started to examine the amenities, being sure to savor each one with care. Products like these were unheard of in Nibelheim and scarce as could be in the Midgar slums. You had to go topside to sector 0 if you wanted the really fancy stuff.

Yuffie turned to the attendant and started to rattle off something in Wutaiese. The attendant responded here and there, confirmations and clarifications implied in their tone. Yuffie turned back to Tifa, “You said you like jasmine? Aerith?”

“Daylily and gardenia.”

Yuffie nodded, and went back to chatting with the attendant who passed several sets of towels across the counter before disappearing into the door to the left of the counter.

“Yuffie this place is amazing,” Tifa sighed, pulling her nose away from a particularly dreamy bourbon vanilla sugar scrub. “Maybe we should head back to the mansion and get our bathing suits. I’d love to go for a dip.”

“Nah, this is an onsen! No swimsuits allowed! First we’ll get a body scrub and a massage. Then we’ll soak naked!”

Tifa flushed slightly. “Outside?”

“Duh! And inside. You’re gonna love it, you’ll see! But first let’s get our spa on.” Yuffie gathered up the piles of towels on the counter and strutted through the curtained doorway through which the attendant had departed. Aerith shrugged at Tifa with a bright grin, and pushed past the curtain after Yuffie. Tifa steeled herself and followed. 

Inside they found themselves in a small genkan, where they left their shoes. Beyond that, they entered a locker room and restroom area, where they were compelled to leave all of their clothing, belongings, and the largest of their towels in a few cubbies. Aerith and Yuffie seemed fairly comfortable and confident in their own skins, with nothing to cover themselves but the tiniest towel they were provided. Tifa tried to make use of hers, but it didn’t help very much with her curves. Yuffie boldly informed her it wouldn’t matter anyway—the towel would spend most of its time either set aside or on her head.

Yuffie traipsed shamelessly through the door out of the back of the changing area, leading them into a large open space with a high ceiling. Typical onsen bathing stations with stools lined the wall to their right. Parked along the wall in front of them, a generous buffet cart of spa water, sparkling wine, snacks, tea, and fruit had been laid out with care. A large, roughly rectangular plunge pool dominated the center of the space, surrounded on either side by four soaking pools. A small waterfall fell into the plunge pool from a pipe somewhere above, filling the space with the sound of running water. Loungers, a few tables and chairs for dining, and a wild assortment of flowering hanging plants in the rafter finished off the space.

Tifa could already tell that some of the soaking pools were fragranced with the scents they had chosen earlier, the smell of jasmine, gardenia, and lily mixed in the air with sandalwood and sulfur, along with some other scents Tifa didn’t recognize—probably some of Yuffie’s local selections. The pools were scattered with the appropriate flower’s petals and buds to indicate their fragrance.

In the center of the far wall beyond the edge of the cool plunge pool, two doors opened out onto an outdoor terrace, obscured entirely by steamy clouds wafting in the chill breeze—the natural hot spring pool.

After cleansing showers at the bathing stations, they were greeted by several attendants who guided them each to a lounger that had been laid flat. Soon, plied with fruity sparkling wine, gold-dusted chocobeans, and bolstered all around with towels and pillows for comfort, the attendants treated them to salt body scrubs and decadent massages—their groans of pleasure discretely obscured by the sound of the waterfall.

“Yuffie, I can’t speak for Cloud, but all is forgiven,” Aerith sighed blissfully, and Tifa found herself nodding in agreement as they rinsed the remaining salt and massage oils from their skins, and made their way to the scented pools to soak.

***

By nightfall, Tifa had completely lost track of time. Aerith and Yuffie were never able to draw Tifa out into the natural outdoor hot spring in the light of day, but the indoor pools were more than enough to eat up the entire afternoon until dusk. Only when the trio grew hungry for something more substantial than fruit and snacks did they leave the onsen and return to the mansion to find out what the rest of the party had been up to in their absence.

Cloud, with Cid’s “help,” and more importantly Vincent’s oversight, had managed to reorganize and slot most of their materia. Barret had spent a generous portion of the day at Turtle’s Paradise trading gossip with the bartender; and Red and Cait Sith had somehow befriended an entire colony of cats, some of which were now meowing enthusiastically on the mansion’s front porch.

The party shared a catered dinner of local cuisine, compliments of master Godo, trying the finest sashimi, pickled spicy vegetables, grilled meats, and marinated popotos that Wutai could produce. Aerith and Yuffie regaled the party with stories of their onsen adventure, Aerith noting to Tifa that at some point she would have to make her way outside under the cover of dark and check out the natural spring pool alone.

The sweet sparkling local rice wine flowed freely, and soon the party split into their assigned rooms to bed down in their warm futons, safe from the deep freeze of the night.

***

Tifa woke with a start and a shiver. There was no light in the room where she rested, and she could tell that it must be well before dawn. It was intolerably cold, and, even under her blankets, her joints ached. Her nose and toes were chilly to the touch. She tossed and turned for a time, trying to go back to sleep, but she simply couldn’t get comfortable in the driving persistent chill. At last she gave up and rose, perplexed that it seemed warmer outside her blankets than inside of them. Dismissing it, she hastily dressed and tiptoed to the dining space, but the deep silence in the mansion and the still forms of her sleeping companions made her anxious about causing too much noise. She let herself out into the freezing temperatures of the garden, dashing for the solitude and warmth of the bathhouse.

The facility was unmanned and dark except for a few dim lights that lit the walking paths through each room. She considered simply letting herself through to the onsen to sit at one of the tables and enjoy a cup of hot tea, before realizing that, one, that would be breaking the no-clothing rule, and, two, she could have the baths all to herself at this hour. Tifa helped herself to a set of towels, and made her way to the changing room to undress, leaving her gear where she had the day before.

The indoor onsen was almost completely dark with the exception of a few dim lights in the depths of the pools themselves, giving the space an eerie glow. Tifa let her eyes adjust, as she took a quick cleansing shower. The outdoor space looked even darker from where she sat, lit only by starlight. The filtered water from the natural spring would be the warmest, and would take the chill out of her bones she reasoned. This was also probably the only time she would be willing to explore it. Slowly, she made her way to the back of the facility and out into the darkness and deep clouds of steam beyond.

She had seen the outdoor onsen through the double doors during the day, but even with the wall of bamboo and the deep curtains of vapor obscuring any possible view, Tifa had felt too shy to explore it with her companions.

Now, shrouded in night, the patio was cold as could be, especially on her wet skin and bare feet. She watched as the warm water on her arms and chest instantly rose in clouds of steam, joining the greater fog that hung over the area and dropping the occasional ice crystal or snowflake. She could see only a short distance before her, and the icy sting of the stone under her soles drove her to hurry to the water. Luckily small lights along the footpath led to the base of the large stones that lined the bathing pool. She carefully picked her way across the ice to the carved stone steps down into the hot water, moving quietly as a cat.

Tifa folded her tiny modesty towel and placed it atop the messy bun of hair piled on her head, then waded to her right in the pool, feeling her way along the stones until she reached the far side. At last she knelt to completely submerge herself, exhaling a sigh of relief as the inexhaustible supply of warm water and steam soothed the cold sting in her toes and cheeks. She sat near a fountain feature built in stacked stones that emptied into the hot spring, filling the space with the sound of rushing water and churning the bath pleasantly. She could vaguely see the top of the fountain through the fog. Regrettably, the pin points of the stars weren’t bright enough to see, but Tifa didn’t mind. She closed her eyes and relaxed in the warmth, darkness, and soothing sounds.

It was only then, as she started to doze, that the sound of another body shifting in the water somewhere beyond her range of sight turned her blood completely to ice.

Eyes shooting open, Tifa wracked her brain for who it could be. Only the party was left in the mansion at this hour. Aerith and Yuffie had still been fast asleep in their shared room, Barret and Cid would never be up at this hour, Red and Cait Sith detested getting wet, and—

Two groggy eyes opened at the far end of the onsen pool opposite from her, betrayed by the glow they cast through the mist. They were pointed right at her—

—and Vincent’s eyes glowed red, not a soft luminous blue-green. By a swift process of elimination, Tifa realized there was only one person it could be.

“Cloud?!”

A loud thrashing of water erupted from the opposite side of the bath.

“T...Tifa? W...What are you...?”

Tifa flung her arms over herself under the water, her face turning a bright shade of crimson that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. At the sound of her voice and movement, the glowing points of light grew in size and intensity, and then abruptly disappeared to the sound of a body splashing in an ungraceful scramble to turn around.

“I-I didn’t know...!” Cloud stammered.

“I thought everyone was...!” Tifa protested at the same time, and then asked, “Did you see anything?!”

“...Not...really. Did you?”

“No.” Tifa relaxed ever so slightly. “I thought no one else was up.”

“I did too.”

“I was so cold this morning, I wanted to soak for a while.”

“Yeah, uh...I’ll just...go.” Tifa heard Cloud shift, and could just make out his silhouette backlit by the low glow from inside the onsen and his own eyes. A beautiful bare shadow clothed only in clouds of mist and darkness, shedding water as he stood up. Tifa couldn’t tear her eyes away. Although there were no lurid details to be seen she drank him in, the sharp planes of his unclothed form and his graceful movements enough to mesmerize her.

Tifa swallowed hard, her throat suddenly sandy in spite of the humidity. Cloud seemed to hesitate, turning one ear ever so subtly toward her.

“Wait! No!” Tifa bit out with a strangled laugh, finally turning her eyes down to the water by force, “No, that wouldn’t be fair. I spent all day here yesterday, and all you did was work. You stay. I’ll go.” She quickly stood and hid what little of her form she could behind her modesty towel, feeling with one hand for the stones at the edge of the pool to guide her to the steps.

“N...no! If you’re cold...” He turned back toward her momentarily forgetting himself. She caught the bright flash of his eyes as he froze, and quickly turned away again. Tifa wondered if he could see her silhouette just as she could see his. Maybe he could even see more with his enhanced vision. The thought made her heart race and her thighs clench.

“Um...” Cloud cast about the stones lining the bath on the far side of the pool with the spotlights of his eyes, and ventured, “Maybe if we just keep low and face away...?”

Tifa hesitated and then shrunk back below the surface. “Ah. Yeah? Maybe? We could share. I guess that would be okay, at least while it’s dark.” Cloud nodded and cautiously sank back down into the water, as Tifa took up a spot along the edge of the pool, facing away from him.

“Cloud?”

“Hm?”

“Where do you think we’ll go next? Once we can leave?”

“Not sure. East probably. Hug the shorelines with the Bronco and try to pick up Sephiroth’s trail again. Maybe search for the Temple of the Ancients.”

“Hmm.”

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the babbling of the fountain.

At last Tifa spoke up again, “C...can I ask you something kind of personal?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Was there anything to what Yuffie said yesterday? About Wutai? Were you deployed here by Shinra?”

Tifa heard a sharp grunt, followed by a low agonized moan of pain, “...yo—AH—don’t make a killer of me—won’t...ever hurt...t—family...I...love...” And then the distressing sound of a dull thump.

...to wake me from the nightmare...I'm becoming less human...

Tifa turned toward the other side of the bath, and could see nothing but darkness. “Cloud?!”

There was no answer.

Tifa stood in alarm and tore across the pool. To her horror, as she neared where Cloud had been, she saw no figure in the haze. At last she arrived at the spot where he had sat only moments before, and felt something soft brush against her finger tips beneath the water. She felt about and at last managed to grapple him below his arms and haul his head above the surface.

Cloud promptly choked and sputtered, one hand still holding his head as he winced, panted, and groaned through the searing pain of one of his episodes.

“Cloud?! Cloud, can you hear me? Are you alright? Did you hit your head?”

Cloud didn’t respond for a long moment, every muscle in his body tense beneath her grip. Then slowly he seemed to regain his awareness, his hand dropping away from his head as he looked around bewildered, relaxing into Tifa’s embrace—and then his eyes dropped to her hands across his bare chest—her own chest pressed firmly into his back.

“T-Tifa?”

“Are you okay?”

“I—”

...If everything's a dream, don't wake me...

Tifa became aware of the warmth of his skin against hers. Hard muscles flexed under her palms as he took a deep breath, his back expanding and sliding against her chest, the swell of his perfect ass against her thighs.

Tifa immediately unhanded him, her hands flying up in surrender, as she staggered back away to a distance where the fog obscured the details of his form again. “Sorry. Sorry! I had to! You could have drowned,” she stammered in explanation. “A—Are you okay?” Her voice was tight with anxiety. She crossed her arms over her chest demurely, but remained close for fear that he might fall again.

“I...I’m fine now...” He shook his head again to make sure it was clear, but he couldn’t shake the lingering feeling where her bare skin had pressed against his moments before... along the whole length of his back. He turned the heated glow of his eyes toward her for a long moment, “Could...you maybe give me a few minutes alone?”

“Oh. Oh! Of course. If you’re sure you’ll be okay.”

“He gave a stiff nod of his head, turning his back to her. “I’m fine. Never better. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay. Okay...Catch up again at breakfast, then, yeah?” Tifa said lamely, backing away from him in the direction of the steps. At last she located them, and made a mad slippery dash to the shelter of the bathhouse, escaping the cold and the sparking glow in his eyes that still reflected in broken dapples off the water and the glistening stones he faced.

When Cloud was certain Tifa was well and truly gone, he spun around and sank with a sigh into the water, trailing a hand absently across the stones and letting his head rest against the ledge of the pool. Tifa _—all of Tifa—_ touched him. If he weren’t already in the bath, he might never have been convinced to take another one again.

***

The party was up and stirring about in the mansion, a few companions gathering at the kotatsu to share a pot of coffee, others stowing the futons and bedding for the day. Because she was  _ such _ a good friend, Yuffie even went to the trouble of stripping Tifa’s bed for her. To the ninja’s delight, a small fortune in tiny unmastered-but-activated marbles of ice materia rolled out of the folds of Tifa’s duvet cover when she lifted it from the bed.

Aerith, folding her own bedding, looked quizzically at the materia littering the floor at Yuffie’s feet and hummed, “Wonder how those got there.”

“Don’t know and don’t care! Finders keepers,” crowed Yuffie in triumph, shoveling the little chips of materia into her pockets by the handful. She would have something to leave for Wutai’s future defense after all.


	19. Ghosts in the Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincenting intensifies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but dense chapter.
> 
> To make up for it, there's a supplemental chapter for the story called [ One More Fall. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27576199) It can be enjoyed before or after this chapter. Happy reading!

**Ghosts in the Blood**

**_Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares.  
― A. Jassal_ **

_ Lucrecia. How will I ever repent? _

_ The man with the moonlight hair must die. _

Vincent tossed and thrashed within the confines of his self-imposed prison, as he endlessly revisited his greatest regrets and a series of baffling lives that he did not know and had never lived. Peaceful, withdrawn repose was a thing of the past, as the night terrors grew increasingly more intense with each passing year.

He dreamed of Lucrecia’s regrets, a sour and sickening horror he was helpless to ease—her soft feelings towards him, encased away forever under glass, only scalded him more with every reoccurrence. He dreamed of a cursed oath made with beloved strangers that haunted his nightmares—unknown nameless faces, but allies just the same, for whom he must shed blood—including his own.

He saw himself in a cave veiled by water, surrounded in materia growth, punishing himself in vigil. He saw himself at inns and camps in unfamiliar places, passing quiet starlit nights under the shadow of doom. He saw the decline of humanity in incomprehensible snips and flashes, which nibbled at his psyche like the tiny bites of insects.

A new and brilliant purple star hung ominously in the heavens, growing ever larger, as a giant lion-hearted warrior, the gun-armed man, told the story of the cole-lands over a shared mug of cheap whiskey. A rare laugh shared between men with common enemies in the face of apocalypse.

Inaccessible landscape rolled by as he peered through the giant viewports of an airship he had never flown. A chain-smoking man with course language pointed out a series of waterfalls in the ranges near his resting place, and heartily slapped him on the back. One called his name softly in a voice he did not recognize.

A noble red hound shadowed his movements around a bank of unfamiliar consoles, monitoring data that he could not make sense of in his dreams. He was compelled to check the source code over and over, but he couldn’t read it no matter how long he stared. Unbelievably, the hound spoke, “Long life can be a blessing or a curse. It is what you make of it, but I will be your friend for all of my days.” And somehow, inexplicably, Vincent knew that the hound spoke the truth and had kept its word.

A serious but kind looking business man, a double agent, squired by a small cat, spoke wistfully of rebuilding a better world out of the ashes of destruction that had never occurred. The organization needed Vincent’s help—the business man helmed a fledgling government that promised a better way forward for humanity and the planet. Vincent believed him, even as a burning ache in his chest urged caution.

A vibrant young Wutian ninja aided the business man, leading an espionage organization like the Turks but not the Turks. Vincent knew this ninja had robbed him, aggravated him, loved him, and saved him from destruction more than once, but he couldn’t remember when or how; he had lived all of the last fifteen years in a box.

A beautiful woman served him ale in a tavern in a city that doesn’t exist. She was kind and warm and always welcomed him, saving him a cot in the business office when his travels brought him through her door. He would come to love her as family—her eyes so like his mother's. He knew, somehow, she was the beloved of his lifelong friend. Her unborn children would be his adopted legacy, nieces and nephews followed through generations at his chosen brother’s side. Together, they would never let the memory of her heroism and goodness die.

“You must remember. You must awaken,” implored the stranger with the verdant green eyes in the wasteland beyond the end of the world. She was gentle and bright, and cared for him, despite only a brief and intense acquaintance—which had never happened at all. Soft and feminine, cheerful yet sad, she asked him to commit murder through apologetic tears. At her side, the man who was his dear, ageless friend, pled to sacrifice himself. The ancient blue-eyed boy with the touch of chaos in his golden hair.

...please...let it be me instead...

He loved this man, and harm to him inspired more fear in Vincent than any other specter that haunted his dreams. This man, tough as corded steel, housed a frail and gentle heart which could shatter like brittle porcelain. They would guard each other fiercely, night terror after night terror, and betray one another only for the love they bore their mutual family.

Vincent didn't know how all of this could be.

Darkening thoughts spun into spiraling nightmares of harbingers. Hojo, laughing gleefully through impenetrable glass and mako at an unfamiliar man with black hair. A corpse-like angel with wings of fetid skin, screaming in languages unknown on Gaia. A silver-haired SOLDIER—his alien green eyes, slit with malice, staring out of a cruelly smirking face carved with delicate features that were so like those of Lucretia. Vincent was certain he’d never met the SOLDIER, but something about him was familiar and nostalgic...and monstrous.

Fear is a funny thing. Vincent knew the silver-haired warrior was dangerous, but the boy—he knew their road must end in tragedy—and that was more maddening than any other delusion that seized his body in violent spasms as he fought to remain senseless.

A searing heat. A bluff far above the decaying remains of humanity. A few wilting shrubs of yellow flowers sharply contrasting the distant hail of endless sandstorms. A gift. A condolence. His greatest friend in all of fathomless time at his side, a young man impossibly ancient whom he loved as a brother; a young infantryman bent on butchering him. His vision clouding with green fire and rising sparks of extinct lightning flies, and suddenly splitting into a hundred different views of the same moment lived a hundred different ways—but just slightly differently. A hundred assassinations, a thousand tortures endured, a million years of lives relived over and over, exponentially multiplying regrets filling his skull until he screamed as they burst through the seams.

_ You must remember. You must awaken. Only you can forge the memory that will break time. _

_ The man with the moonlight hair must die. _

Vincent was torn from his slumber drenched in a cold sweat, breathing heavily as if he had just sprinted up 59 flights of stairs.

He was blind and on his back, vulnerable, disoriented, and surrounded by light and the sharp smell of blood and mako. Immediately he lashed out trying to raise his arms defensively, but his wrists struck splintered woodworking, barely able to pass a few scant inches above his body. Momentarily his vision cleared as he blinked away the ageless sleep in his dimly glowing eyes. The lid of a box met his gaze, mere inches away. It was covered in gore. Slowly the soreness in his limbs asserted itself. In fighting the raging tide of his nightmares, he had torn his own skin and painted the inside of his prison in faintly-glowing mako-tainted blood.

A fitting punishment for a man who was little more than a monster.

Vincent relaxed, closed his eyes, and carefully listened to the surroundings outside his prison. The mansion was silent except for the scurrying of rodents. In the far distance, crickets chirped, so it must be somewhere between July and September or possibly October. There was no other sound except the rush of his own blood in his ears, the creaking of his joints and ligaments, and the low rustle of his restless cloak, shivering with anticipation to move at his will.

He noted a slight discomfort on the left side of his body. Something was poking him in the floating ribs. Carefully—tentatively—he shifted and drew his claw up along his side, sharp points dragging on the damp wood of the box beneath him until they tapped something hard. He found a small sphere in his grip, cold to the touch, and nearly icy.

It couldn’t be materia. He had unloaded all of his equipment, with the exception of Cerberus, before he had banished himself into this box. It had been completely empty when he had crawled inside with the intention of sleeping for eternity. Had someone pried the lid without his notice? It was impossible.

He slowly brought the materia to his chest, and gazed down at it in wonder. It was unlike any he had ever seen. It’s surface was the darkest inky black, and over it crawled a red pattern of tattered patches that seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking directly at it. It reminded him of the torn hem of his cloak.

The longer he looked at the materia, the more the red pattern seemed to swim, strangely unsettling in its excited state. Merely handling it, it warped his vision, and he thought he perceived strange movements in the distance in his periphery. But of course that was impossible—the box surrounded him just inches away on all sides of his body.

  
Against his better judgement, Vincent tucked the materia into the pocket of his cloak to equip it, and it hissed its cursed name into his heart, _“Nightmare.”_

...Nightmare...Memory of the Sacrifice...Enables the wielder to inflict nightmares and hallucinations of the apocalyptic future...Used to stagger and overpower insurmountable foes...

So fitting.

Vincent relaxed again and resigned himself to the chore of falling back into torpor. It had grown more difficult in recent months to maintain his unconsciousness.

Something boiled in Vincent’s blood, beyond the memories and dreams, both his own and those of others. An ever-growing compulsion. A drawing sensation, pulling him inward. The expanding darkness at the center of the planet—the whisper of the taint in his genetic code, introduced by Hojo to punish him uniquely among his test subjects. Chaos—the demand to reap. To harvest. To divest himself of his humanity and cave to the monster. “Cleanse,” roared the beast inside the prison of his body. He resisted, yet the nightmares promised relief if only he did one simple thing.

_ The man with the moonlight hair must die. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A visual reference for [ Nightmare. ](https://www.dhgate.com/product/2pcs-natural-peach-blossom-jade-crystal-gemstone/417850461.html)


	20. Tiny Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A feast of Zerith. Bring a box of tissues.

**Tiny Wishes**

**_I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.  
— W. A. White_ **

A discomfiting quiet hung in the atmosphere of the lifestream. The threads of all memory waved with pacific calm and the mako ocean was still, but a tension pervaded the space that Aerith could only sense beyond true perception—like malevolent eyes trained on her back.

The spitting end of the present thread clutched in her nebulous left hand; her right combing a clutch of precious lines, she worked, keeping her view trained tightly on the threads of memory before her. Aerith would no longer look behind herself at the mako ocean—at the place where Jenova’s infection grew ever greater by the hour. She knew what she would see. Sephiroth bent in grateful, albeit mutinous, servitude to the creeping blackness. The ever-growing horror that was steadily expanding into the ocean, expelling a new forest of duplicated memory to take the place of what she had cleared. Ceaselessly spreading. Grasping tentacles ever drawing closer to her position.

...MOTE OF FILTH IDLY PROFANING PRECIOUS TIME...WHERE YOU STOOP I SHALL DINE...

The worst of what she must do—all that she could do, regrettably—was done, and now it was her last task to find the thread where Vincent awakened and completed his mission—before Chaos awakened instead.

Aerith knew she must be closing in on the right memory now. In hundreds of memories where she eavesdropped, Vincent had awoken but had been unable to overcome Sephiroth. He was simply too weak against the man who was a one-SOLDIER army in life, made yet more powerful as his madness began to manifest. Only in the last few threads she had followed had Vincent awoken, years before the confrontation, to find a strange boon inside of his sealed box. So far, there was no forged line where Vincent had awoken, found the strange materia, and then awoken again to confront Sephiroth. Aeirth wasn’t certain how she knew, but intuition told her the strange materia would be the key to Vincent’s success.

As she thumbed through thread after miniscule thread with great effort, seeking the combination of events she knew she must find, she bowed her head momentarily in prayer. Soon Zack was tumbling out of the lifestream above her. He righted himself, beaming with delight to see her, “Aerith! I—” He froze and his countenance fell as he looked over her shoulder at the view behind her. “Aerith…” His mouth hung open in shock as he looked back and forth over the artificial horizon.

Aerith looked up at him and smiled cheerfully, “Hi. It’s been a little while…” She tipped her head and hummed, trying to draw his gaze.

“I can’t remember…” Zack said numbly, his eyes darting about something in the distance.

“Don’t look at it. I try not to. It’s not important right now.” She continued to sift through the lines in her reach. “I know it’s bad…”

“Ah...I think maybe you should take a look, if you haven’t.”

“No.” She shook her head, keeping her focus on Zack and the lines where she worked, “I know what I’ll see.”

“But…”

Aerith turned a calm, kind smile and maddeningly unconcerned eyes up to meet Zack's. “I promise you, it’s not important right now. I need to tell you some things. Please,” she reached for him with her free hand, still holding the present thread tucked under her arm.

Zack momentarily tore his focus from whatever lay beyond her shoulder to meet her eyes, glanced back beyond her uncertainly, and then elected to take up a defensive position behind her. He scooped her into his lap and held her close to his front, with his back to the reality she would not confront.

She only smiled and passed the present thread into one of his free hands. Pausing in her work, she hugged his arms tightly to her, and gave a sigh of relief. Having shifted to a more comfortable position in his lap, her free hands busied themselves again with the lines she was searching. A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she remembered simpler days when they sat, and sometimes made love, together just like this, while she tended the flowers in her garden in the church. Her presence warmed with the delightful memory, and he squeezed her in response. “Sometimes I really miss the simple stuff...like this. The flowers, ya know?”

“Aerith, I think I would be a negligent partner not to warn you that I don’t think we have much more time.”

“I know. That’s actually why I wanted to talk.” Aerith could feel Zack nod, his face resting over her shoulder watching her work. “You know it’s not me that leaves when it’s been a while right? Even when it feels like it’s been no time at all...”

“I guess I kind of worked it out over time. I have big gaps, but I never realized...How long have I been… gone?”

“A long time this time. I missed you so much.” He could hear the ache plain in her voice. She went on, “I have never found a way to restart the cycle. Eventually, I realized that the only way might be to try something...drastic.”

“Heh. Well, you’re a drastic-measures expert, right?” He affectionately pulled her hair back out of her eyes and stroked the side of her face as she continued to work.

She laughed, a tiny strangled thing, “I like drastic measures when they’re fun—like dressing my friends up in drag and forcing them into tight spots with their romantic interests. Can’t say I’m laughing at what I had to do this time. I’m not even sure what will happen…” She was quiet for a long moment, her voice choked with tension, “...but there was no other way.”

“I know that whatever it is, it’s for the best. That’s how you operate—for everyone’s best interest.”

She laughed again, “I missed you so much. You’ve always had more confidence in me than I had in myself.” As she spoke, her fingers slowed, and her translucent thumb and index finger closed over a thin golden strand, its width finer than a hair but with strength greater than cabled steel. She held it up closer for inspection, and then sat in a stunned silence. The small thread glimmered and shone in the sputtering light of the present thread.

...make it count...

“Aerith…?”

Clutching the thread she leaned back into him, “Zack, I…” She choked again, and then laughed weakly, “I really don’t want to cry while I say this stuff...”

Zack squeezed her tightly around the middle with one powerful arm, “Then I won’t let you!” And he started to tickle the borders of her ribs, eliciting a screaming peal of laughter, harder and brighter than she had done in a long long time. When he let up so she could catch her breath, she smacked him on the arm across her middle, grabbing the present thread from his hand in an exaggerated huff, “That’s not what I meant!”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—you always hold in your laughter, and…it’s my favorite thing. Ever. Whatever you have to say, will you let me make you laugh when you’re done?”

Aerith stifled a sob, “Yes, yes I will, if you can make me.” And she laughed at that. It was a funny challenge, even if her heart was breaking.

“So what did you want to say? It better not be goodbye again,” he grumbled, leveling a knowing look at her.

“I don’t know if it’s ‘goodbye’ exactly,” she said honestly, thumbing her chin. “‘Goodbye’ doesn’t seem right…” She paused a moment and turned in his arms, still clutching the two most important threads in a hand. She wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him and hugged him as hard as she could, “You know I love you. I’ve always loved you, more ways and times than you can imagine.”

“Of course, and you know the feeling is mutual.” And of course she did, because there was no hiding such things in this place. “What is it, Angel?”

“I just wanted to say that whatever happens, when I have to do what I have to do,” she pulled him closer to kiss him gently, “I would like to spend more time with you.”

Zack smirked and kissed her on a cheek and then stretched taller and planted another small kiss on the top of her head, ensuring he blocked her view of what lay at his back. “Is that all? That old wish again? If that’s what you want, then it’s going to happen if I have to fight every remnant, alien, weapon, and the whole planet myself, single handedly.” He gave her a bright glowing grin that would have positively sparkled in life.

“I’d like to see that,” Aerith snorted, giving him a small push.

“Then I’ll make that happen, too! You probably think I wouldn’t try.” He folded his arms across his chest and waggled his eyebrows at her illicitly. “Now if that’s all you wanted to tell me, I think you owe me some laughter.” Unfolding his arms, he wiggled his fingers at her villainously, intent on making her laugh one way or another.

Aerith looked down at the precious threads in her hands, looked back up at him, and then smirked with a bit of her old fire, “Do your worst!”

Zack grinned and did just that. First he smothered her in kisses and caresses, worshiping her with unquestionable adoration. He couldn’t wrest the threads from her hands, so he worked around them, teasing and tickling her, and showering her with affection.

He told her goofy sweet nothings that were so cheesy, she laughed in second-hand embarrassment for him. He told her self-deprecating jokes, regaled her with stories of hilarious antics involving her weird, hopeless friends Cloud and Tifa in Nibelheim, because that always got her rolling. Soon he had her cackling with mirth, much as he had done sitting cross-legged on the bare floorboards of the church so many times in the past. But it wasn’t enough for him.

He made her tell him the story of her adventures with Cloud in Wall Market, and about the time she wrangled Cloud and Tifa into a cute, awkward date with her expert G-Bike skills. He forced her to relive the awkward run-in she orchestrated in Wutai, and he laughed every bit as hard as she did because a shared laugh is a better laugh.

...I WILL FLAY YOUR MIND AND MULTIPLY THE MEMORIES THAT STEAL YOUR REPOSE UNTIL ALL THAT REMAINS IS AGONY...

A distant rumble shook the area where they rested, but they ignored it.

He terribly serenaded her, crooning awful renditions of love songs he only partially knew. His attempt at Midgar Blues was almost painful, but so incredibly sweet, as he changed the words around:

_ “Oh Midgar, Midgar, city that's always on my mind _

_ In Midgar, Midgar, I left my one true love behind” _

He loved her, knowing that even if she said it wasn’t goodbye, it was. And for her part, she kept her word, holding back none of her good-natured teasing, smiling, or laughter, which spilled into the ever-darkening space like pure perfect light.

The lifestream shook again, harder this time; the inner walls of the planet that enclosed almost the entirety of the system groaned. They shook like a great bass played to the beat of a massive heart through all of their surroundings, but it was still and silent except for the echo of tumbling stone.

...BRING MOTHER TIME...

Zack sang the refrain again, delighted as finally impossible tears, green as mako, tumbled down Aerith’s cheeks as she laughed as brightly as summer sunlight.

“Zack, I hope we meet again,” Aerith whispered through her breathless laughter and tears. She held his eyes with perfect adoration, pressed her forehead to his, and squeezed the golden thread in her hand, casting Reunion. He crushed her against his chest and held on as the tremors in the world became stronger.

  
  
**_“I promise,”_** wept the planet in the language of flowers, and died.


	21. Auroral Repose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I accidentally a soft smut. Keep the tissues handy.

**Auroral Repose**

**_Everything I’ve never done, I want to do with you.  
— unknown_ **

Dusk settled over the northern continent. The storm systems that had pushed the icy air south to Wutai had brought a freak warm front over the north. The air was far from balmy, but it wasn’t uncomfortable on the skin either. Around the berm where the Highwind temporarily moored, the last of the hardy winter meadow grasses, in their confusion, bloomed hopefully in the false spring and rustled in the churning breeze produced by the airship’s propeller blades.

Taking advantage of the fortunate weather, the majority of the party had departed to see to unfinished business. Alone now, as the twilight deepened, Cloud watched the waves of the green northern aurora shift in the sky. He had the uncanny feeling that it looked familiar, as though he had stood beneath vast shifting green tendrils within the fleeting lives glimpsed in countless half-remembered dreams. The aurora itself seemed to look back at him, its gaze gentle, protective, and kind.

...make it count...

A soft crunch and tumbling of stones behind him betrayed the arrival of the party’s sole remaining member. He turned to find Tifa approaching from beneath the airship, eyes trained on the faint green shimmer in the sky in wonder. Her hair whipping in the wind, she walked beyond where he stood and looked out over the rolling peaks and valleys. 

“Wow,” was all she said, but the awe in her voice spoke volumes of praise for the view. “Everyone’s gone?”

Cloud looked at her back, wrestling with old feelings of helplessness as he considered the words she’d said earlier as the rest of the party had made their preparations. She had nowhere to go and no one to go to. She would stay behind with him and see this through to the end, whatever happened.

“Yeah. Except for us.”

Tifa looked down at the delicate alpine flowers at her feet. “It’s okay. I’m sure they’ll come back, right?”

“Everyone has something irreplaceable they’re holding onto… This time the odds aren’t great. I don’t know what will happen. Couldn’t blame them if they don’t”

Tifa hugged herself and considered what he said. “It’s alright. Even if no one comes back...as long as you’re here by my side. As long as we’re together, I won’t give up.”

“Tifa...”

“Everything I’m holding onto is...right here.” Tifa crossed her arms in front of herself and gently swayed in the breeze. “Cloud, no matter how close we are now, we were distant before. I don’t know if you remember, but in the lifestream—through all the howling and screams of anguish—I heard you calling my name.”

“I heard you calling me, too. You called me back. I nearly lost myself, but I had promised if anything ever happened to you, I’d come help...I'll never forget that.”

Tifa craned her neck, again looking at the aurora and the brightening stars that spangled it, deepening in intensity as evening fell. “Do you think the stars have any idea how hard we’re fighting for them?” The green dappling the sky rippled and glittered as if in response.

“I dunno...but whether they do or not, we still have to do all we can. Someday we’ll find the answer, right? That’s what you taught me—in the lifestream.”

“Yeah. That’s right.” Moments stretched into minutes as they watched the last of the sun’s rays disappear beyond the horizon. With no civilization to cast light pollution into the sky, the intensity of the blanket of stars was greater here than anywhere else they had ever seen on Gaia. The aurora’s shivering dance shaded some of the field of stars a rich, fiery emerald green. The effect washed Tifa with a wave of nostalgia as she remembered chasing similarly colored clouds of lightning flies around the summer fields as a child. Blinking back a few stray tears, she hoped this wasn’t the last time she might see the stars with Cloud or remember the peaceful fields of Nibelheim. If fate were kind, she might even like to watch a child of her own try to catch little darting motes of light there...if fate were kind…

“Tifa...” Cloud interrupted her wandering thoughts, “I—there were so many things I wanted to say to you, but now that we’re together like this, I don’t know how to put them into words.” Cloud shifted uncomfortably behind her, the soft sounds of his ever-present sword brushing the buckles of his harness as he took it from his back and staked it in the grass. “I...I guess maybe nothing has really changed, huh?” He huffed the self-deprecating laugh that made Tifa’s stomach tickle and the sides of her mouth curl up in an affectionate smile.

...I love you...

She shook her head, eyes still trained on the stars, “Cloud...Words aren’t the only thing that tell people what you’re thinking.”

She might have meant anything. She might have meant that the promise he’d kept to her over and over since their reunion told her all she needed to know—or that every time he caught her or pulled her to safety, she had understood what he meant to say without words. But the way that she shyly brushed her hair from her eyes, crossing one of her ankles behind the other and toeing the grass, told him she meant more than all of that. He turned and looked at her back for a long moment.

Without looking back, Tifa reached out behind herself with one open, welcoming hand—an invitation. And without a moment’s hesitation, Cloud stepped forward and accepted it.

Assuming his place at her side, he took her hand, lacing their fingers, and pulled it up to his lips to press a series of soft kisses over her knuckles. Tifa tore her eyes from the stars in surprise, and watched him, her expression melting to the sweetest, most hopeful smile she had given him since he’d plucked a golden lily from his harness and placed it in her care, “Cloud...”

The trusting warmth in her eyes broke him. A fire touched off in his soul, betrayed by the rising glow in his eyes. He drew her closer, turning to face her, his free hand gently stroking up the inside of her arm, busy fingers setting to the task of unbuckling her gauntlet while his lips still roamed the bare skin of her fingers. He divested her of one glove, then the other, and then—mesmerizing her with the hot, unwavering stare of his luminous cerulean eyes—he cast off his own bracers and gloves so that he could bask in the feeling of her bare warm hands in his again.

Tifa sighed in delight. With both of their hands clasped between them now, she twisted her wrists and kissed the backs of his hands in return, soft warm lips brushing over rough battle-worn skin, drawing an uncharacteristic gasp from him as he watched in rapt fascination. Emboldened, he pulled her hands over his shoulders, letting his own drift down the curves of her body to clasp the small of her waist, and bent to kiss her properly—as he’d always imagined she deserved.

Tifa gave a stuttering exhale of relief in his embrace, holding her body against his for warmth and support. Her fingers dug into the untamable spikes of his hair, and her lips parted to welcome him as he tasted her eagerly. Even through layers of clothing, his body flared like a hot furnace in response, and Tifa soon found herself struggling to be closer to the heat in his core, arms tight as a vice behind his neck, hips grinding against the reassuring evidence of his desire for her.

Cloud flushed and moaned into her mouth. She felt him cross his arms tight across her back and lift her, careful not to break their kiss. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she was carried a few steps back to a small stone shelf edged with grass, where Cloud took a seat, gently settling her into his lap.

He pet the length of her body in long searching strokes, fingers wandering deftly between and beneath layers of clothing to explore and map the mysteries of her skin, as she clawed his back and sobbed her encouragement. Her own hands roamed the muscles of his back under his sweater, and before he knew it, she was pushing his suspenders down, clever fingers picking the locks of the buckles on his harness and belts. Cloud had ducked his head to nibble the tender skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder. He was carefully kissing his way up the column of her throat when he felt her fingers part the buttons on his fatigues and slowly pull the zip down tooth by agonizing tooth.

“Tifa—” he cried her name like the incantation of a spell as her searching hand freed him from the confines of his clothing and the chains of uncertainty that had always plagued his mind. “Tifa!” he wept as she lovingly caressed him with gentle firm strokes. He could only choke and bite into her shoulder when she planted her knees on either side of him, carefully adjusted his aim, and settled herself down atop him with a soft keen of pleasure.

Memory, infused in his blood, whispered instruction like instinct, and Cloud eagerly followed its directions. Stifling his body’s base urges, he waited until she was comfortable, and then set a slow graceful cadence with his hips beneath her.

Tifa’s nails dug into his back as he anchored her, one hand guiding her at her hip, another roaming beneath her tank top to graze the peak of a tender breast and clutch at her ribs as he studied her reactions for clues. Hazily Tifa marveled at what a careful and generous lover Cloud was. Of all the rumors that surrounded the business of making love to SOLDIERS, the expectation of gentleness and consideration had never been topics broached in her bar. Soon patience and careful pacing paid dividends as she arched her back, grinding desperately against him, and cried his name like a prayer. Her head fell back, her eyes glassed over, and she quietly mewled the most delicious sounds Cloud had ever heard.

He could feel her body grip and flutter around him beyond her ability to control. Watching her lose herself was more than he could handle. Cloud hissed and roared her name, “TIFA!” pulling himself from her to spill the glowing poison of his heat across the rocks beneath them. His head fell to her shoulder as his own shoulders rose and fell with the heavy panting of his breath. He didn’t know when or how it had happened, but his arms were locked around her, holding her close to him, and he vaguely felt her adjust her position just slightly so that her arms could tighten behind his neck again.

They stayed like that, just holding one another, until their blood cooled and their breathing evened. At last Tifa relaxed back slightly in his grip, capturing his eyes again. “Stay with me tonight?”

Cloud answered with a small determined nod. Whatever she wanted, if it was in his power to give, she would have it.

Tifa kissed him again and then carefully rose from his lap so they could readjust their clothing and resettle side by side on the bank to watch the stars. After a moment, Cloud realized that her eyeline was trained down at the ground between his legs rather than up to the sky. He looked down at the rocky surface where she stared, and flushed in mortification. The evidence of his spend still glowing brightly like a beacon where it had fallen.

Tifa unsuccessfully tried to stifle a giggle as he awkwardly ground his heel into the spot trying to cover it with loose soil and gravel. “I knew your eyes glowed—and your blood, but…”

“Yeah...yeah…” Cloud mumbled in embarrassment, avoiding Tifa’s eyes as he looked far in the distance in the opposite direction. A warm hand hooked under his chin and gently pulled him so that he was facing her again. Beguiling wine colored eyes twinkled beneath his, and her melodic voice purred, “I think that’s sexy as hell.”

He looked shocked only for a moment, and then he broke into the pleased smirk that compliments often summoned to his face. “If you like it, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

Tifa broke down in the warm laugh that he loved so much and leaned against his shoulder, wiping happy tears of mirth from her eyes. She carefully wound her arm through his and cuddled into his side. “We’ll see about that...”

Still smirking, he extracted his arm from her grip and crushed her against his side, enveloping her in his body heat and the smell of his skin, his arm holding her close with undisguised affection. “I’ll hold you to that.”

...I promise...

They watched unfamiliar constellations drift across the sky in a comfortable silence, until at last they fell asleep, clutching one another close. The aurora shifted, flared, and danced overhead, keeping watch through the quiet temperate night, until at last it faded with the first rays of dawn.

***

In the low light of sunrise, Cid, Barret, and Red looked down from the viewport at the front of the Highwind on the intimately intertwined figures of their two companions sleeping on the rocks.

“What I can’t figure out is why the hell they didn’t just share a bunk,” rumbled Barret.

“Perhaps they just collapsed from exhaustion,” offered Red sensibly.

“HA! Oh yeah, it was exhaustion, alright,” roared Cid with lecherous old-man gusto. He took a sip of his black coffee and smirked. “Should I sound the airhorn and let em know we’re back?”

“Pretty sure Spiky’ll kill ya if ya do.”

“Might be worth it. I’d eat a phoenix down for that,” cackled Cid.

“Ah, let em alone. Took em long enough to sort themselves out anyway,” groused Barret with a certain fatherly protectiveness to his tone. “Let em get s’more sleep, ‘n do their neckin’ in peace. Got nothin but a long, shitty day ahead to look forward to anyway. Speakin' of sortin' shit out, you square anything with Shera?”

Cid stammered and poked busily at some buttons on the nearest console, “Yeah, somethin’ like that.” He coughed and plucked a cigarette from the pack strapped in his goggles, fumbled with it, put it back, and then tapped his fingers restlessly on the viewport, grinning like an idiot. “Whatever. Anyway, more coffee?”

“For a day like t’day? You bet’cher scrawny ass. Let’s go.”

The trio made their way to the galley, enthusiastically planning a grand breakfast for the returning crew. The wafting scent of eggs, waffles, and bacon would prevent any further interest or intrusion on the tender scene unfolding in the meadow below.


	22. Night Terror’s End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent carries this thing, kicking and screaming, to its conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might I suggest for your listening pleasure, [ FF7 The Nightmare Begins (Vincent's Theme) Music Remake by Mathew Wallace/Enrico Deiana. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PMF3jCG25c)

**Night Terror’s End**

**_Perfect love and sacrifice are nearly indistinguishable.  
— unknown_ **

Cloud’s eyes flew open to a thunderous clap of board thrown hard against stone somewhere outside the walls of the room where he lay. He might have immediately dismissed it as the remnant of a dream, except that it was followed by another faint clattering—the sound echoing in the cavernous grand foyer beyond the guest room where he and Zack slept on the second floor of the Shinra Manor. Then there was nothing but unsettling stillness.

Eyes wide, he lay listening. Only Zack’s even breath in the next bed broke the thick silence, but a terrible icy dread clutched at Cloud’s chest, preventing him from rolling over and going back to sleep.

Was it a door, perhaps? Had Sephiroth finally emerged from the lab and the library where he begged for solitude?

Or was it the old mansion settling again? More than once he had been startled by odd creaks and strange movements caught just in the corner of his eye as he patrolled the dim, dusty abandoned halls—his mind playing tricks. Like all of the children of Nibelheim, he had grown up immersed in the legend of the manor’s haunting—strange shifting shadows passing the darkened windows at night, moans and muffled thumps at all hours, the snarls and sounds of claws digging in agony against their premature tomb.

Surely, all just the whispers of anxious young imaginations.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of distant, terrified howls. Cloud sat up, and Zack stirred in the bed next to him, a hand raising to rub sleep from his eyes, “Cloud?”

“Zack. Do you hear that?”

Zack sat up abruptly, listened for a moment, and then sprung to his feet, starting to pull his gear on. “Get dressed. Sounds like something is wrong with Sephiroth.”

Cloud quickly hopped to obey the orders, pulling on his uniform and checking to ensure his Shinra general issue rifle was loaded and ready. He hated the thing, but it was better than nothing in a pinch.

In the distance, the howling sharpened to screams.

“Shit.”

Zack slung the buster sword onto his back and charged out of the room, Cloud following close on his heels. Cloud nearly ran into Zack’s back as he suddenly stopped short by the second-floor staircase and raised a hand for Cloud to be completely silent.

“There’s someone with him. I hear a struggle.”

And then the first report of a gunshot sounded.

Zack was gone in a flash of dizzying speed that Cloud could not match. He ran at a full sprint following the series of doors that Zack threw open in his path. The second shot rang out as he stepped through the stone door leading down the decrepit spiral staircase to the sub-basement. Zack’s voice rose in a command indecipherable at this distance, and a third gunshot sounded as if in reply.

As he sprinted down the cave-like hallway toward the library, Cloud noted the door to the locked tomb was thrown open, the coffins inside in various states of disturbance. He heard the sounds of clashing steel, and when at last he staggered, breathless and panting to a halt in the lab, his eyes struggled to make sense of the scene in the library before him.

Sephiroth sat in the tall-back chair at the desk, his green eyes wide in unseeing terror as he bled profusely from three gaping gunshot wounds in his abdomen. He seemed unaware of their existence, entirely absorbed in peering at—and yet through—Cloud. He stammered and whimpered, his eyes darting around beyond Cloud at—nothing. There was nothing but shelving, a desk, and some lab equipment beyond the young recruit.

Behind the chair, Zack engaged in combat with a lightning fast shadow, caped in red. The assassin, guarding against Zack’s strikes with Masamune, leapt to a high library shelf, momentarily thrusting the katana into the ceiling to free its hands to reload its murder weapon with a shockingly fast flick of its wrist.

“Z...Zack...” choked Sephiroth, gasping for air, a hand clawing up his torso to hold a gaping bullet wound, and look at his hand in stunned surprise. The assassin tucked a hand in its cloak and muttered a dark, cursed incantation under its breath before Sepiroth’s eyes clouded over with horror again, a piercing shriek escaping his throat as he stared unseeing into the distance, clawing at the holes in his own body like a wild animal.

Zack roared in frustration and dealt the antique wooden shelf a violent deathblow, just as the assassin leapt—jerking the katana free—and somersaulted in the air. The wraith alighted crouching on the far side of the room, raising the sword defensively again. But the creature, eyes glowing red, did not fire on Zack as he charged across the room. Instead, it turned the gun on Sephiroth again and again. 

Three easily fatal shots tore through Cloud’s childhood hero, the flickering red spray of his life spattering the remaining shelving and books on the right side of the room.

Sephiroth collapsed back in the chair, head falling slack, eyes rolling skyward, blood trailing down one side of his jaw. His wide vacant stare aimed through the ceiling. “Ho... jo...”

“Who sent you?!” Zack screamed in helpless fury, destroying another shelf, as the wraith leapt away again, sprinting to the far side of the room over disorderly stacks of books. The cloaked figure didn’t answer, dropping down to the floor to break for the exit, as Zack planted a boot against the wall trying to extract the buster sword from where it was lodged in stone and shelving.

The shadow dashed down the hall and then glowing red eyes met deep blue pools of terror—and rage. Cloud blocked the only exit to the narrow hallway. He raised his rifle and fired.

There was nowhere for the black-haired man to dodge—it was a pale, sickly looking man, now that Cloud was near enough to see clearly. The intruder lifted Masamune, clasped in a golden claw, and tried to deflect some of the gunfire, but a peal of bullets tore through his opposite shoulder, causing him to drop his tri-barrel gun.

Zack was behind the assassin in a blink, bringing a punishing blow of the buster sword down on him, only narrowly blocked with katana and claw, as the assassin fell against the shelving on his injured shoulder.

“Are you from Wutai?!” roared Zack, knocking the katana from the man’s grip and holding the razor-sided broadsword dangerously at his throat.

Golden claws curled over the sharp blade of the sword, holding it back, as red eyes shifted to Cloud.

“No. I am an old friend.”

Zack looked at Cloud, with questioning confusion. Cloud spat on the ground. “He’s not from Nibelheim. I don’t know this piece of shit.”

The assassin suddenly shoved the buster sword with his metal claw and ducked under Zack’s arm with inhuman speed. As he tried to reach Masamune again, Cloud opened fire for the second time, bringing the man to the ground in a growing puddle of his own faintly glowing blood.

“Are you a fucking SOLDIER? What the fuck are you?!” Zack snarled, recovering and turning to level another volley of questions and attacks—but what he saw caused his jaw to drop and his blood to curdle in his veins.

The strange man with the mako-blood groaned, fingers and claws dug into the stone floor and shaking violently, “Please...F—forgive me.” The red cloak shivered, twisted, and thrashed, seemingly of its own accord, obscuring the body of the assassin as it morphed sickeningly to the tune of snapping bone and popping sinew.

Cloud staggered back a few steps, his mouth hanging open in shock.

The slender, wretched creature that had occupied the floor only a moment before was replaced with a raging galian beast. The creature roared as Zack set upon it in earnest with the business edge of the buster sword. Cloud, in turn, gathered his wits and opened fire.

The creature gained its feet and then, unbelievably, ignored the assault at its back and charged Sephiroth again, tearing into the SOLDIER to dismember him extremity by extremity in an unspeakable sprawl of gore.

Zack rushed to cleave into the beast, and Cloud followed, picking up Masamune as he passed and discarding the rifle.

But even as the two men carved into the beast, parting hide and muscle, and slashing its tendons—bullet holes riddling its back—it fell across the desk to rip open the chest cavity of Shinra’s finest hero, and devoured the faintly fluttering heart secreted there-in.

...I’m so sorry...well done, old friend...thank you...rest in peace...

And then there was nothing, because this time could no longer exist.

***

`ERROR13:ERROR_INVALID_DATA:` `The False Hero is dead; Diverge does not exist.`

`ERROR13:ERROR_INVALID_DATA:` `The Hero never rises; Reunion does not exist.`

`ERROR23:ERROR_CRC: The Handmaiden of Gaia's inventory performed an illegal operation. Object does not exist. The Handmaiden forgets.`

`ERROR_ARENA_TRASHED 7 (0x7): Paradox; the storage control blocks were destroyed.`

`Gaia is dead. Long live Gaia.`

`The cycle must continue. The promise must be kept.`

To resolve the issue, do the following:

  1. Scroll to the top of the document.
  2. Click **Entire Work.**
  3. Right click on the page, and select **View page source.**
  4. Press **CTRL+F.**
  5. In the search box, enter **hidden.**
  6. Click the down arrow until you see the text of the story.
  7. If necessary, continue to click the down arrow until you finish reading the **_rest_** of the story.



  
  


`Time corrects to the last resolvable state.`


	23. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happy reunion and a happier ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to my beta reader for fixing all my typos and suggesting excellent content additions. Enormous gratitude to BM5025, SultryMakoto, and Clover for reading this and keeping me motivated to see it through to the end. You folks are the MVPs. :)

**Epilogue**

**_Love has nothing to do with personal gain, and everything to do with how we spend our time.  
— unknown_ **

As the first rays of early dawn filtered through her bedroom window, Aerith threw her blankets aside and tumbled out of bed. She hurriedly pulled on her favorite dress, a warm jacket, and a pair of heavy leather boots she had come to favor when her gardening required a bit of digging.

Today was the first day of fall, and mom had finally granted her permission to start planting her lily bulbs on the barren overlook by the waterfall. They had worked all spring and summer, taking some advantage of the Turk muscle that occasionally showed up to garner goodwill, clearing rusty scrap and reinforcing the hillside with cobbled stone walls and steps. Elmyra had at last deemed the area safe enough for the young tween to garden as she pleased, and Aerith couldn’t wait a moment longer to start.

Aerith loved growing vegetables with her mom, pleased to be able to share their bounty with the children and families in their local sector and even beyond. But in truth, her passion were the lilies that grew wild up through the floorboards of the church, their sun-loving leaves reaching hopefully toward the rays of sunlight that filtered through the holes in the roof and the colorful stained glass of the windows.

Aerith just knew that they would love the sunny berm by her house, where the mists of the waterfall fell gently day and night. She was determined to grow a flower garden, and mom had said as long as she kept safely away from the edge and cared for the garden herself, she could plant as many flowers as she pleased.

Pushing her way out the door, well before breakfast, into the cool autumn air, she fetched her trowel and the small bucket filled to the brim with freshly harvested lily bulbs that had been gently dug and separated at the church the day before. She had rescued only the weakest and most light-starved—she would see that they had new happy homes.

Aerith skipped gleefully up the steps and looked around the generous plot that was her very own. She would have to plant in the most promising spot to start, and then continue to spread the bulbs and seeds as they multiplied over the seasons. In her imagination, she saw the space filled with flowers fluttering in the breeze of summer. It would just take hard work, love, and time, mom had said. The planet whispered its agreement.

Dropping her bucket at the edge of the rise nearest the waterfall, she knelt down on her knees and started to dig, rainbows dancing in the spray from the falls as she worked. The soil was packed, and it took her tiny arms a great deal of effort to push the trowel through the first few inches at the surface, turning the dirt aside to open a small hole. Mom had said five or six inches would do, so she plunged the trowel back into the hole, but it caught on something hard. A stone or perhaps more debris from the plate-fall.

Aerith frowned, looking around the space, noting the relative sun and moisture levels. This was the perfect spot, she judged. She would plant her first lily here whatever it took. Re-adjusting the trowel to the side of the offending stone, she slid it down beneath the obstruction, and then pressed down hard, levering a clod out of the ground with a grunt.

A glint of pink caught her eye as the soil turned and the gentle spray of the falls alighted on an exposed surface of the stubborn rock. Setting the trowel aside, she dusted the rest of the hardened clods of dirt away and was surprised to find it was a perfect sphere—a materia. She rubbed the small orb with the hem of her dress and delighted in its rosy pink color, just shy of fuchsia. Mom had a few simple materia for use around the house, and Aerith, of course, had the materia gifted to her by her mother, but this didn’t look like any of those. It was  _ so pretty _ !

  
She held it up in the light of the sun where it twinkled, and then carefully tucked it into her jacket pocket. It giggled and whispered its name to her heart like an old friend.  _ Strange Memories. _

...Strange Memories...Memory of the Handmaiden...Promise of the Hero...Final gift of Gaia...Restores the memory of the previous cycle...Enables the wielder to forge the new cycle to a happy and prosperous ending...

And as she worked planting bulb after bulb, humming quietly, the materia continued to whisper the strangest story. About a group of friends and companions, found family, who all loved each other very, very much. Their lives and stories relived countless times, recorded in the threads of the lifestream—every time just slightly differently.

***

“Cloud?” Tifa called, pushing the door open and leaning from the entrance of Seventh Heaven, as Denzel and Marlene burst past her hip and spilled down the steps to play. “Watch it, and be careful in the road,” she chided to their backs as they dashed for their bikes to meet up with the other neighborhood children. The autumn air was crisp and clean—the open sky, clear and blue over the rooftops of Edge. It promised to be a beautiful day.

Cloud’s back was turned to her, a watering can in hand, generously dousing the fading green stems that, until recently, had bloomed with yellow daisies in a box filled with rich sandy soil on the small landing that opened to the street. This lone space caught just enough sunlight through the day to keep the little flower box blooming through the summer. Cloud replanted it every spring when his deliveries took him through the wastes.

“Shera called. Cid is bringing Vincent into town to see Reeve. They’ll be picking up Barret on their way. They’d like to have dinner...” She tilted her head watching him with a faint smile of amusement.

“Hm. Dinner sounds good.” He set the watering can down next to the box, and clapped his hands together to dust them off.

“Cloud...those are annuals. They’re at the end of their season. They won’t bloom again—you can let them go.”

He looked fondly at the contents of the small box, and turned to pull Tifa into a warm embrace, gently resting one hand across her swollen belly. “It’s fine. They don’t need to bloom for me to care for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A visual reference for [ Strange Memories. ](https://www.crystalarium.com/products/vibrant-pink-tourmaline-1-35-inch-65-gram-natural-crystal-polished-sphere-russia)


End file.
